Fall For Me (Remastered)
by UnseenSilverWind
Summary: [DISCONTINUED] sorry Three friends are selected to play a game in the world of KHR. What tales of adventure, romance, and heartbreak will follow them as they progress through the story, following and bending the rules? Follows manga, Varia-Choice. slow burn (Slow romance, stupendously slow romance, but there are pairings. but not fast enough to tag as romance sorry) M for language.
1. New Game: Prologue

Hey hey! We're back with a brand (not really new) remake of Fall For Me~

as you can see, it's called Re: Fall For Me. how original right?

Anyways, prepare yourselves.

Credit for KHR and like, 92% of the characters in this fic belong to Akira Amano, praise her little soul.

also, posted 4/24/16 so happy birthday to the bae, the bar, the bagel: Yamamoto Takeshi. you adorable dense amazing motherfucker.

word count 5672. ⋌༼ •̀ ⌂ •́ ༽⋋

* * *

5 Years Ago

"Happy 13th birthday!" Three voices chimed in sync.

Two girls and one boy were sitting in a circle, each holding a nicely decorated box.

"It's not even your birthday Ian, why are you getting a gift?" A girl with long black hair and glasses crossed her arms.

"Screw you Vi." The only boy, apparently the aforementioned Ian, flipped the bird at the girl who just spoke, not caring for her pointed look directed at him. "It's not your birthday either." He flipped his blue hair smugly.

"Lana said it was okay for us two to have a joint birthday party." Vi reminded him and stuck her tongue out.

"Y'all need to stop fighting. Open your dang presents already. Gosh." The third girl who hadn't spoken yet, Lana, was already on the verge of using her southern accent impersonation, having enough of their argument.

Ian snickered, "'Y'all' huh? Why is it even all? There are only three of us here. 'The both of you' would've been more appropriate."

"Presents, now." Lana stressed what she previously stated. She contemplated grabbing at her shoulder length dark hair in frustration.

"Alright, alright. Thank god I got Lana this time though, _she_ wouldn't give someone a box of spiders as a gift." Vi shuddered and gave a pointedly sharp glare at the offender.

Ian placed a hand at his chest, giving an innocent expression toward Vi. "What are you talking about? I would do no such thing. But if we're talking about bad gifts, then what about that time when my hair turned green for a month?! It wasn't even a nice shade either…"

"Children!" Lana, almost at yelling point, placed her foot down, "I said stop fighting already! Jeez…" She sighed heavily. Lana imagined this was what having toddlers was like. "On the count of three, we are going to open our presents, alright you two?"

"Ye." The squabbling pair responded at the same time.

"One…"

"Two…"

"Three!"

"Tsuna!" Lana gasped upon opening the package, "T-this Tsuna even has his own 27 mittens!"

Ian laughed as he carefully unwrapped his gift, "Looks like we each had the same idea, huh? Hello, Yama. You look nice in your Inheritance outfit."

Vi's face was dead serious as she grabbed Lana's arms in a painful grip. "I love you and I will never let my tiny Chrome go. She's adorable and I love her and everything is right with the universe."

"I'm very happy for you but can you at least let go of me?!" Lana could feel the blood circulation beginning to cut off from Vi's iron grip.

"Vi no!" The boy cried out, unable to contain his laughter as he face palmed.

"Vi yes!" The girl retorted, sticking her tongue out.

"It's too late, Ian!" Lana sighed, "It's too late."

Groaning in mock exasperation, the boy placed his palm on the girl's shoulder, "Lana, why did you give it to her? She was fine without it!"

"Well who else does she like?!" Lana retorted, waving her arms around in a flurry, "Vi loves her to death!"

"I love meganes." Vi stated with her hand on her glasses in the stereotypical anime nerd pose.

"Vi, the only meganes in this anime are Chikusa, Shoichi, Verde, Koyo, Glo Xinia, and sometimes Gokudera." Lana pointed out.

"Well, Chrome doesn't wear glasses so why do you like her?" Ian rolled his eyes.

"Because she's perfect and adorable and super strong and I love her! Bless my little heart." Vi clutched the doll to her heart.

Lana face palmed, silently regretting the present she chose for Vi.

Ian put a hand on her shoulder, comforting her. "Think of it this way. At least you didn't get her a Mur-crow plush. Then the fangirling would have been even worse."

Present Time

 **Setting: Manila International Airport, Philippines 1:00 PM**

"It's hot…" The young lady complained, panting lightly as she pulled a dark green leather luggage, "It's too hot…!"

Stopping, the lady quickly tied her long black hair into a low ponytail, "Well that kind of beats the heat."

Glancing back up, the person breathed out, "Congrats Lana Vega, you finally made it to the airport. Now if only it wasn't too humid."

"Vi and Ian are lucky they're closer to Japan than me." She sighed out of jealousy. "I have to leave so much earlier than them." Sporting a white sleeveless halter top and jean shorts, Lana slowly made her way up to the doors.

Strangely beside the front doors was none other than a trinket vendor. Halting her flip-flop covered feet, the brown eyes hidden behind glasses sparkled.

"Handmade jewelry and knick-knacks?" Lana walked closer to take a closer look at the items. ' _Are there any bargains?'_

Among the souvenirs were carved wooden water buffalo and horse charms, seashell necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and rings. There were some rings with freshwater pearls, one of the most common gem souvenirs. But besides those, what was left was…

"Mood rings." She blinked in surprise. ' _Now that I think about it…the cheapest ones out of these items are the mood rings.'_

"Miss?" The vendor's voice snapped Lana out of her thoughts, "Do you wish to try it on? It wouldn't hurt to try and see the color of your current expression."

"O-oh…Alright I guess." She calmly picked up a ring form the table. ' _I mean, it is a mood ring. Perhaps I should try to see what my mood is anyway.'_

Slipping the ring onto her hand, Lana raised it up high above her head. Watching the swirls of colors change, Lana hummed, "Orange."

' _Why does that color seem familiar to me? Oh, that's right. It's from—'_

Before Lana could even finish the thought, a sudden poof burst forth. A puff of pink smoke left in place.

"First one complete!" The vendor cheered for himself as he put on a checkered patterned hat. "On to the scariest one," he shivered before disappearing into the shadows.

 **Setting: Taoyuan International Airport, Taiwan 2:00 PM**

"Ms. Chang, we've arrived at the airport," announced the chauffeur as he pulled up to the curb.

A tall girl with straight black chin length hair sat in the back seat with her ankles crossed delicately, playing with her phone. She looked up at the call of her name and realized the car had stopped.

"Thank you as always, Alex, for your excellent driving. Although how many times have I asked you to call me Vi?" She grinned at her family driver as she got out of the car. The man got out of the car and removed the girl's luggage from the trunk. "Thank you again. Can I expect you to pick me up when I return?"

He tipped his hat as he got back into the car. "Of course, Ms. Chang. Your mother also wanted me to pass along a message to 'have fun in Japan with your friends and also don't spend too much money.' Do you wish for me to convey to her your reply?" He asked through the open window.

"No thanks. I can always just Line her from the lounge. Also just call me Vi already!" She pouted as she stepped away from the car. The car pulled away from the curb as the girl waved goodbye.

Purse on her shoulder, she adjusted her black leggings and ruffled lilac tank top and prepared to head into the building when suddenly an arm fell around her shoulder.

A cocky looking young guy had put his arm around her. "Well what's a fine girl like you doing here? Did I hear you say your name is Vi?" He smirked in what he assumed to be a handsome grin.

Vi spun swiftly, sunk her nails into his forearm, and watched as he flinched sharply. "Who the fuck do you think you are?" She bared her teeth and looked down on him as the pain spread through his arm. Her voice went cold. "You're lucky that I don't claw your face off right now. Get out of my sight."

Paling quickly, the man whimpered a little, nodded, and retreated.

Vi harrumphed and checked herself. She dragged her large black rolling suitcase and walked into the airport. Glancing at her watch, she realized she had more free time before her flight than she had originally scheduled. Looking around, she saw a souvenir store and decided to window shop for a while.

Entering a small bookstore, she thought it was strange there was no one in there except the shopkeeper. Shrugging the thought away, she spotted a couple of gachapon machines in the corner and approached in the hopes of getting a small gift for her friends. The nervous shopkeeper kept a careful watch over the girl, anxious about the success rate of this attempt.

Upon seeing the girl arrive at the gachapon machines, the attendant coughed lightly, catching the girl's attention, "Excuse me, miss…are you in need of assistance?"

Under his breath, he muttered, "Please say no."

Having overheard the man be so negative, the young woman grinned evilly and turned to face the man, "Why of course! Thank you for offering!"

Stepping closer, she continued, "I was wondering if you had any recommendations for presents for small children. I am searching for a suitable gift for a young child."

Panicking over the fact that she actually requested help, the clerk choked out a reply, "Well…Um…Let's see now…Well we have…Rings! Available from the gachapon machines! Children will love them, surely." Arm waving towards the gachapon section, he quickly took a couple steps away from the girl.

"Rings?" The young woman wondered if her friends would care for the item, "Hmm…Perhaps."

She briskly strode over to the machines and looked over its inadequate offerings. "Do you only have mood rings?"

The poor man whimpered in fear and nodded quickly, "Yes, I'm so sorry. Those are the only rings we have available at this time."

"I suppose they will do," she said with a huff and bent down to insert a few quarters into the slots. After twisting the knob, a purple capsule orb rolled out. Grabbing the plastic orb, the cap fell off by itself revealing a mood ring and a corresponding color chart.

"What the fucking goddamn son of a bitch piece of shit shoddy packaging right there. Takes all the fun of opening it." Muttering to herself, she rolled her eyes frustratedly and inspected the ring itself.

' _A bit cheap, isn't it. Well it is a kid's toy.'_ She put it on her right hand middle finger, turned to the nervous, sweating man, and showed it to him. "How does this look, sir?"

The man dabbed a checkered handkerchief across his forehead, although she never saw him take it out. "It is a very nice shade of purple, miss." He gave her a nervous smile, until she turned her gaze to her finger.

"Huh, purple." She contemplated the color in silence. "Huh." And then it all went up in a thick cloud of pink smoke.

"Thank god that's over." The salesman wiped himself with an entire paper towel roll, covered head to toe in a nervous sweat. "The scariest one is done with, now onto the last one… Oh god, it's that one…"

 **Setting: Incheon International Airport, South Korea 3:00 PM**

A tanned boy wearing a blue and yellow "Sun's Out Guns Out" tank top and a pair of cargo shorts bounced his head along to the music playing through his headphones. He took a few moments to shift his grip on his silver and white striped luggage and adjust the straps on his carry-on backpack.

Sighing slightly in relief from the heat, he began walking through the airport. "I'm glad I have the shortest flight out of all of them. They should be on their planes already."

"It's gonna be so hot and packed in Japan, this is gonna suck major dick." He groaned in semi-agony, but was still plenty excited to go sightseeing. Noticing a small booth's merchant waving at him, the only meager offering being a few odd trinkets and what looked to be jewelry, he took a few steps toward it in a quick attempt at browsing.

 _Maybe I could get them some souvenirs?_

…

 _Nah. Vi doesn't deserve it. Lol. Fuck her. That's what she gets for giving me a box-ception gift last Christmas. It was empty too… Motherfucker._

He shook his head and continued past the booth. He continued past a few other stalls, only to see yet another booth a few feet away from him. He stopped in his place and looked at it suspiciously. "I could've sworn that's the same booth from…" He turned to look back and was greeted with the booth in the same spot as he had passed it.

"…What the fuck." He did a double take, looking back and forth between the two spots. They looked exactly the same. Even the same merchant with his silly hat growing increasingly tired and drenched in sweat.

He sighed and continued past the stalls, turning up the volume on his headset. A few more steps and he could see, yet another booth, run by the same man wearing the same colors and selling the same wares, set up directly in the middle of the walkway and taking up almost all of the space.

Not even bothering to stop, he moved past the booth that was crowding where he was walking to. Taking an escalator up to the food court, he was greeted by the same man crawling on the floor, his wares scattered about him.

The teen slipped his headphones off onto his neck and approached the booth if you could even call it that anymore. Glancing around at the wares, he sighed. "All jewelry. How lame. Wearing things like that would be a double edged sword in a fight."

He began to turn away, however, the merchant called out to him, "You don't have to wear them forever. Short periods of time can do just as well. Mood rings are quick little things and are just as interesting as fortune telling, if you'd like to try one on?"

"Mood rings? They never seemed to work for me. So no thanks." Ian was beginning to feel really weirded out by the salesman and began walking away again.

Only to be stopped by the guy, who seemed to be pitifully crawling towards Ian with an outstretched arm. "No please wait!"

Staring at the oncoming dude with abject horror, Ian felt his body move a few steps back on instinct. "Dude what's your deal? Leave me alone, I don't want to buy your rings!"

The salesman's eyes gleamed with a strange light. "But you must! It is absolutely paramount that you take one!" Quickly scrambling to his feet, faster than Ian could react, he plunked a ring onto Ian's open palm, with a look that promised a never ending haunt if Ian didn't try the ring on.

At this point, Ian was really freaked out at this man's behavior. It made no sense for that man to make Ian put the ring on. Unless he was like one of those super pushy shopkeepers, but even then, to push his product onto Ian? Terrifying. There was a second when Ian thought that he should call the cops on him, but that thought quickly disappeared when he took a good look at the ring. Leaving his luggage standing alone, he placed the ring on his left index finger and watched the color slowly change to blue. "There, are you happy? I put it on." Taking another closer look at the color, he felt a strange sense of calm. "Figures. It always seems to be blue for me. Oh well—"

Without even finishing his sentence, a loud "poof" was heard, and a pink cloud took the place of where the boy had been standing, luggage and all. Once the cloud had cleared, the merchant gave a relieved sigh and clapped his hands together with a smile. "Oh thank god that was the last one! Time to close up shop and report back."

 **In an unknown location…**

In a warmly lit room that looked very similar to a stereotypical living room, three clouds of smoke appeared around a table simultaneously.

"Oof…"

"What the actual fuck."

"That goddamn merchant…"

Once the smoke cleared, the trio looked around and were shocked to see each other staring back from across the table.

"Vi and Ian?!" Lana's voice practically croaked upon seeing the two familiar friends, "I…I thought you guys were heading to your respective airports for Japan like we planned?"

"Yooooooo wassup. I do think that shitty merchant had something to do with it. I got a ring from him and now I'm here." Ian shrugged and rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand, showing the ring on his other hand.

"Same, except I got a ring from a gachapon machine. I am in pain." Rubbing the seat of her leggings, Vi opened her fist to reveal an empty capsule as well as a mood ring on her finger.

Lana raised her hand to reveal the ring, "This is starting to get weird now. Better yet, what're we going to do now?"

Vi grabbed the note sitting on the table, "Look a note!"

"Gee I wonder what it is." Ian drawled with a roll of his eyes.

Upon reading the note, the trio mumbled out loud what was written neatly on the piece of paper.

 _Welcome~_

 _I have decided to start a new game, and I have chosen you three as my new players. As you would call it in your world, think of this as your tutorial. I have left personal tutors there with you, who can be identified by their pink hair and masks, so take your time to learn how to fight and use the power of the rings. I will meet you once you are done. If, and only if, you win the game, you may go home. Until then, have fun learning the ways of this world._

 _-Checkerface_

Looking around, the trio found that there were suddenly three females with pink hair and black masks who were waiting for them.

"Thank you for waiting. We are the Cervello organization, serving directly under Checkerface. No more and no less. In this room of warped time and space, we'll serve as your training instructors." The three women said at the same time.

"Before we begin, please allow us to make one small change to the rings you currently have." Taking a step forward to the three, they took the hands bearing the mood rings. Within their clasped hands, light shone from between the gaps as the mood rings on each of the young adults morphed into something else.

Rings embedded with gems corresponding to the color of what their mood rings were. Orange, Blue, and Indigo.

"What…?" Lana gaped at the sudden change in the rings appearances, "An orange gem ring?"

Holding his hand up to observe the new look, Ian whistles, "Sweet ring. Much better than a mood ring. And it's still blue. Excellent. Egg-cellent. Heh."

"Is this real silver? This is much better quality than the shoddy plastic of the mood ring." Vi brought her hand closer to her face and grinned. "I wonder how much it's worth."

Snapping her thoughts back to their current situation, Lana addressed the mysterious trio who changed the items they just received. "Excuse me, but is Checkerface the one who pulled us in here?" It seemed odd that a man with the power to bring them to a mysterious place would send proxies instead of meeting them directly.

"That is correct. As we stated before, we are the Cervello, serving directly under Checkerface in order to aid you in your training. He will meet you when you are done."

"I see." Lana mumbled to the other two, "Hey, um…do you guys find their names familiar or something? I can't seem to put my finger on it."

"Yeah it does seem familiar in some sort… But from where?" Ian glanced wearily at the posse of masked, pink-haired women.

Vi shook her head, "Nothing comes to mind. Although, it sounds kind of Italian, don't you think?"

With a snap of their fingers, three weapons appeared in the masked women's arms. This surprised the heck out of the trio. After getting over their initial shock, they looked at each other, confused as to how the women did that.

The one standing before Lana held a white crossbow with the body shape of a pistol, and to her it seemed a bit too heavy for the masked lady to carry. However once the Cervello handed it to her anyway, but the unexpected weight of the weapon almost sent Lana to the nonexistent floor, "Heavy…"

She wondered as to how the lady was able to hold this in the first place, since she could barely even carry it as the masked being did.

"Theodore! How did you get him?" He snatched the modified, steel-reinforced bamboo quarterstaff away from the Cervello struggling to holding it vertically and gave her a suspicious glare. Through his modifications, one was for portability, so Ian twisted the staff slightly, allowing it to shrink into itself lengthwise, saving space.

The remaining Cervello handed over a thicker-than-average pink ruler with a slit in one edge. "Oh? What the hell is this?" Examining the offered gift, Vi waved the ruler around, until it opened to reveal a hidden galaxy-decorated blade. "Oh my god, it's like a folding knife, but with a damn machete."

One of the Cervello spoke up. "Now that you three have received your respective weapons…let the individual training begin."

One could say earning free self defense training would be great. However the trio had no clue as to why they would need training in the first place. Getting transported into an unknown area practically with nothing in it except them, the Cervello, possibly this supposed Checkerface, and a table did nothing to help them understand their current situation. Nonetheless, the pink-haired women made them practice their given weapons and rings until they were satisfied with the trio's progress.

"You need to hold like this." The Cervello helped fix Lana's posture in holding the pistol-like crossbow. With the end touching the clavicle edge of Lana's shoulder, the position of the weapon made it feel as if she were using a rifle. Lana's hand visibly trembled as her finger tapped lightly onto the trigger.

"B-But…I never used a firearm in my life!" Lana grimaced at the pressure of using this particular weapon due to it having a recoil effect upon shooting the arrows. Just after one shot of an arrow, a punch from the body of the crossbow returned. It seemed painful enough as is. Though once the Cervello started teaching her about the purpose of the orange gem ring, t seemed easier on Lana's means compared to handling the firearm.

"You must focus your resolve on this ring." At first, Lana found it weird for the Cervello to mention it. She wasn't really sure about her resolve in truth, but one thing was for sure. Lana wanted to find out the outcome of this supposed training in the first place. ' _Why were we chosen in particular? Why do we have to undergo training? Who in the world was this Checkerface? Who are the Cervello? Why did both of those names sound familiar to me when I can't even recall a single thing? What in the world was the game Checkerface was proposing to the three of us?'_ These questions continued to fuel her resolve, leading Lana to feel something warm envelope her hand. Although she had to admit, the orange flame dancing atop of the ring she wore seemed like a spectacular sight. "What a pretty hue…" She breathed in admiration of the singular color.

As for Ian, his parents, a doctor and a police chief, had already taught him everything he needed to know about self-defense and fighting. They were also the ones who gifted him with his quarterstaff as a birthday gift. A self-defense training session with the Cervello was quickly deemed unnecessary, as he quickly blew past the training exercises with ease. Demolishing the training dummy was no sweat, and it gave him a chance to refresh his muscle memory and try out different methods as well. Using the ring however, was a far more difficult task.

'" _Focus your resolve" was what they said, but what was your resolve supposed to be focused on? Survival? Exploration? Winning 'the game'?'_ Their explanation, Ian thought, was complete bullshit. Instead, he took it as focusing his body's energy, his 'ki' or whatever the term was, into a single point: the gem on the ring on his finger. Closing his eyes in concentration, he extended his left hand in front of him, grasped his wrist with his right hand, and drove his focus towards the tips of his fingers. A deep breath…A coil of tension settled in his stomach… Inhale…He could feel his body temperature rise to a comforting warmth…Exhale… His hand began to tingle and tremble slightly… Ian opened his eyes to see his ring alight with a dancing bright blue flame and whispered to himself with a smile, "There we go."

Now as for Vi, she was having the thrill of a lifetime as she stabbed, mutilated, and chucked her newly acquired sharp blade into the straw dummy. In the real world, she kept herself in prime health, running daily and keeping up with a self defense class. She had a lot of frustration to work out from this entire situation. She had too many questions about everything but it was obvious that the Cervello weren't going to spill anything. So she might as well get the most out of their mandatory training lessons.

Suddenly she remembered something she saw from an action movie. She mentally calculated the move and decided it would be really damn neat if she succeeded. After she propped up a standing dummy, she stood in front of it, appraising it. Abruptly, she spun slightly, kicked her left leg at its face, then simultaneously brought her left leg down and right arm up. The momentum caused her machete to swing faster and it completely beheaded the poor straw dummy. It made the Cervello instructing her on the said weapon feel slightly wary of the Indigo-ring wielder.

"Ahaha!" Vi stood back and laughed haughtily at her new accomplishment.

Feeling like her physical skill was pretty good, she decided to focus on the part she was dreading: lighting the ring. She watched as Lana and Ian both lit their rings and felt frustrated. The indigo flame flickered in and out as Vi tried to focus her resolve onto the flame, until a burst of anger and frustration made her to throw the knife at the now headless dummy. Many things happened at once. The ring lit up, the weapon vanished in midair, and a hole appeared in the center of the dummy's chest. Vi straightened up in surprise, mouth open. Her sudden change of emotion caused the ring to go out and the knife reappeared, with the blade tip showing in the middle of the dummy's back.

In the background, the Cervello wondered if she should congratulate Vi or not, on her accidental victory.

Little did the trio know, as soon as they had entered the space, the person known as Checkerface had quickly begun stealing most of their memories concerning a particular universe. Only leaving the bits and pieces they treasured most was all that was left. Converting these stolen memories into tangible crystallized shards, Checkerface turned those shattered memories into the crystallized center for their rings to help awaken the trio's dormant power.

Each ring held a symbol in the center. A star within a pale yellow crystal. A crescent moon in the middle of a pure white crystal. Finally swirls representing the formless wind centralized in a silvery crystal.

The star, a constant symbol of light and guidance, gently helping those who need it. Its light, while numerous and prevalent, can easily be hidden, can collapse on itself with too much stress, and can be lost if you take your attention away for even a second. The moon is a mixed symbol, waxing and waning, shedding light on things in the open and obscuring things hidden in the shadows. It hangs overhead, pulling and pushing, a mysterious presence that can mystify, yet undergoes phases that, once they are understood, are reliable. The wind, fickle and restless, is sporadic. It is neither constant, nor at a standstill, yet it can be everything in between, a gentle support, a harsh scythe, a hot suffocating nothingness, or a cold breath-stealing storm.

Both the stars and moon are a constant presence in the sky, even if they are not always visible. The wind however, doesn't belong to either the sky or the earth, remaining more in limbo of the two, but can still make visible changes to both with enough effort.

Checkerface grinned in amusement of the crystal rings held in his grasp, "What a curious set of personalities…I wonder as to how they met?"

With the rings finally done, Checkerface turned his attention to the room holding the three individuals whose training seemed to be wrapping up nicely.

The aforementioned individuals were exhausted with learning something of which they, mostly Lana and Vi, wouldn't think of using in their lives.

"Is this enough?" Lana questioned the Cervello who tutored her, "Are we finally going to meet this supposed person you've mentioned from before?"

"Yeah," Ian agreed, rhythmically swinging his staff in circles, "Where is this supposed man that we're supposed to meet?"

"Come on, let's get this show on the road." Vi bounced on the balls of her feet and flipped her knife open and closed repeatedly. "Is he waiting for a formal invitation?"

The sound of a door opening made the three of them turn their heads to it. A tall man wearing a checkered-pattern hat and mask covering the upper part of his face stepped through into the room. Compared to the trio, he was dressed in a fancy suit ready to state his business. However the hat and mask kind of killed the image.

"Hello. You can call me Checkerface."

"Yeah no shit." Ian grumbled.

"Ian." Lana sent Ian a displeased look before returning her gaze at Checkerface, "You can continue."

Ian gave Lana a look and a rather vulgar motion that pretty much said, 'you can suck it'.

Undaunted by the interruption, he continued, "Congratulations on finishing the tutorial for the game, but I would also like you to think of it as a trial. There will be many more trials in the game to come that you must overcome in order to win. But like any good game, the tutorial would not just leave you finishing the tutorial and thrust you into the game play without some kind of support."

He paused, handing each of the trio a ring of a different color and gem from those they already had. "I have created these to be your primary ring flames, as they more directly correspond with your soul and mind and would thusly react more strongly to your desires and resolve. I'll explain a little more on your individual flames after I finish explaining the rules." It went without saying, of course, that he wouldn't even consider telling them how he made the rings.

"Finally, like every game, there must be rules. First and foremost, I'm sure you will have some knowledge of this world. That knowledge cannot be shared with any of the other characters, and none of you can majorly change the timeline. There is a story to be told after all, it wouldn't be good if the players could change it at their will, now would it?"

"Secondly, say nothing about your true selves and how you came to be in their world. We cannot have confusion and panic about our newly introduced characters. Third—" Checkerface paused, noticing a raised hand from Vi, "Yes?"

"Yes I have a question. Or more like multiple questions? First, where the fuck are we and what the fuck is happening? The knife was cool and all but I have shit to go back to. Like are you going to refund my airplane ticket since I've probably missed my flight? Is this some parallel universe or a completely different universe? You just magicked us into this world with some cheap jewelry, didn't you? Who the fuck are you, a god or something? What exactly is this game of yours and why did we get chosen? What are the rules of the game? What's the objective? How do we win? Why is my hand on fire but I don't feel anything? Like what's the whole physics behind this? Why did I get a ruler and Lana has a badass crossbow gun? That's unfair, don't you think? I mean I could probably handle a regular gun or something." Vi ranted, voice escalating as she stared down Checkerface.

"Yeah that's cool and all but how did you get Theodore? He was in my bag, which is nowhere to be seen here." Ian looked at Checkerface suspiciously.

"Who the fuck is Theodore? Where's my luggage? I had my DS in there!" Vi waved her hands in the air, looking frantic.

Lana sighed, pinching bridge of her nose, but at the same time, wondered about her own DS. She was in the middle of finishing the last parts of her most recent rpg video game and had yet to know the ending of its storyline.

"…You all seem to have many questions." Checkerface dreaded the thought of answering any of their questions and simply decided that he wouldn't, "They will be answered in due time. Let the game begin."

 ***** POOF *****

* * *

heheheh. we are picking up the pace, and throwing it like a skipping stone.


	2. Your First Mission

aaaaand we're back with an update.

this is mostly a bunch of words so have fun i guess?

lol forgot to mention co-authors last chapter. lazura234 and lenkachu. whoooo!

and another one. credit to the one and only akira amano for KHR.

word count: 8608. ⋌༼ •̀ ⌂ •́ ༽⋋

and because FFnet is shitty and has a character limit for chapter titles, i'll just put it right here

 **Chapter 2: Your First Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It**

* * *

"Ouch!" Lana yelped upon landing face flat completely sprawled on what seemed to be a wooden flooring, "Not again…all I feel is pain this time though."

"And he sticks the landing!" Ian yelled, dramatically raising his arms above his head. "Aww yiss 10 outta 10, perfect score, graceful form, if he keeps this up he could win the Olympics…if there are Olympics in this world."

"Dick move, man." Vi lay on her back and shook her fist towards the sky. "So rude. Didn't even answer any of my questions. I will have my vengeance."

As Lana got up from the floor, she glanced over toward her friends only to gasp in shock from what she saw, "V-vi…Ian…um…you guys."

"Hey! You can see again without glasses?" Ian asked, looking at the fallen Lana and noting her missing glasses.

Lana bit her lip, realizing her vision was back to how it was during the end of middle school despite needing glasses in high school due to poor habits. Unsure of how to express her words, she slowly managed out, "That isn't what I'm trying to say."

Vi turned to face Ian and started. "Who is this tiny child?! Ian, you're so…I want to say adorable, but that's disgusting."

Said tiny child scoffed at her and straightened up, "Speak for yourself, stranger. I see your curtain has returned in the same ugly bangs you had back in middle school with those same tacky window panes to match."

By some mystical power, the three of them had reverted back into three preteen versions of themselves dressed in the same clothes they were wearing as adults except proportioned to fit their de-aged selves.

Ian ran his hands over his head and was pleasantly surprised to feel his undercut again. He did feel a twinge of disappointment from the loss of his tiny ponytail, but decided it was fine. Ruffling his shorter, fluffier hair, Ian realized it was probably more like his middle school hair style rather than his high school hair, meaning that it was a blue to black, 2 toned hairstyle. There was a distinct lack of weight that Ian could tell was from his undeveloped muscles that he had spend the majority of high school building up. With the missing muscle mass that had added to Ian's frame, which made the clothes he was wearing fit nicely, the shrunken clothes he wore now only loosely draped over his form like an underweight child wearing his father's clothes. A quick glance at his arms and legs told him that he was still decently tanned, but to a more modest degree. "All of my hard work…I need to go back at it again. And I need better fitting clothes."

Lana blinked a few times in disbelief of the return of her former 20/20 vision, especially when she first saw her friends in their former middle school age. Though the phantom feeling of the glasses remained, Lana didn't stop attempting to adjust where the said article used to be. A little bit embarrassed of the action, Lana stopped herself from doing anymore. Next she proceeded to raise her hand, trying to grasp for any hair lying on her back however it was only air she grabbed explaining the missing amount making it seem as if Lana was patting her back. Of what Lana supposed, she did the same thing as before except tracing her fingers around her neck. Bingo! As expected, the hair that was once Lana's long black hair had indeed shortened to shoulder length. A luxury of relief on her back especially. Sending a glance down at her current body, Lana couldn't deny the change in height or specific body proportions which shouldn't be mentioned to a soul. Although Lana decided to confide to Vi later about it since she was also in the same situation of needing clothes for her 13 year old self. In any case, Lana was somewhat glad that the clothes she wore as an adult had shrunk to a size more fitting.

In a panic, Vi quickly ran her hands through her hair and found that the changes were true. Her hair had grown from the chin length she had as an 18 year old back to the waist length she had as a 13 year old. In addition to the length, she also gained back the bangs that she had decided were a great idea upon entering middle school. She made a mental note to trim them a little or get some hair clips. Besides that, not much had changed regarding the straight and neat style. Her sight was a bit blurry since her contacts had disappeared during the transformation and she had somehow obtained her old glasses. As she felt her face, she wished she could look at a mirror as her face was a little shorter than she remembered. Putting a hand on her chest, she realized that she was definitely in the body of a 13 year old. She had probably shrunk about a head shorter and lost certain assets that she was quite used to. She added on the the list in her head that she and Lana would need new clothes since the ones in their luggage wouldn't fit anymore.

Abruptly, while the three were reacquainting themselves with their de-aged bodies, the sound of footsteps approached the room.

A familiar face appeared before them, standing in the doorway. "U-uuhhh, hi!"

"Aren't you…" Lana blinked a few times before realizing who it was, "The person who showed me the mood ring!"

"You!" Vi lunged forward in rage.

"Hey you're that creepy salesman!" Ian struggled to control his urge to punch him in the face, but figured that Vi would do something of the sort for him.

Vi tackled the man to the ground as Lana screamed in the background. "It's your fault we're in this situation! Look at me! I have bangs for god's sake! Fix it!" She shook the man after each sentence.

"Eek!" Screeched the man, completely absorbed in fear of the current pre-teen version of Vi, "I-I can't! I'm only Master Checkerface's subordinate in this game!"

"Tch. Useless." Vi reluctantly released the man and stood up, dusting herself off. She sneered at the man as he got up from the ground.

"A-anyways, there were a few more things that Checkerface wanted to pass down to you. Consider them housewarming presents. Uhhh…Let's see…" He searched his pockets until he triumphantly pulled out a small notebook from his inside jacket pocket.

"Hhmmmm, here we go! I am called Tsunomichi. You have already obtained your rings from Checkerface, but for everything else, I will be…your…care…taker?" He paused and brought the notebook closer to his face, scanning the notes again and again and again. "There must be some sort of mistake? Me? I can't take care of them! Oh dear oh my." Tsunomichi promptly fainted in shock, dropping the notebook to the floor.

"Uh…are you okay sir?" Lana waved a hand in front of his face, she kind of pitied the man's situation.

Seeing the man was not getting up any time soon, Ian then grabbed the dropped notebook and looked over its contents. "Hm. It says here that we are effectively the owners of this house, that he 'oh so kindly granted us residence in', our rooms are already set up and our luggage is in said rooms, and that we have an unlimited bank account for all of our spending purposes. Tsunomichi, that guy over there who fainted, is our caretaker and legal guardian since we are, as of right now, middle school age and we'll be attending Namimori Middle School in the Japan of this world. Great." He slammed the notebook closed and gave a dry look towards the girls.

"Cool so we've ended up in Japan anyhow." Vi was kneeling on the floor next to the body. One hand was inside Tsunomichi's jacket pocket, while the other was holding a plain black wallet.

Lana worriedly nudged Vi, "I don't think that's the money we were supposed to get."

"Shh, don't worry. It's free money." Vi rifled through the wallet, pocketing the bills and cards. "I'm good now. Wait, on second thought…" She knelt down again and unlaced his shoes, taking them off.

"Vi, why?" Lana just stared at Vi incredulously as she robbed the man of his things. "You can't even use the cards? Why his shoes?"

"I just like to ruin people's day, my friend." She clicked her tongue and held up a peace sign.

Lana sent a frown to Vi, "From the looks of him, it seems like we already did enough."

"Bro, this guy is already KTFO'd the fuck out, his day is effectively ruined. Oh shit! Speaking of ruined days, this guy man, I swear he can teleport or something. While I was at the airport, this guy was acting as a vendor with some shitty wares so I passed him without thinking, only for him to be behind the next shop! And you know, I did that double take, and he was at both places. I kept passing him until eventually I came across him with all his shit spilled out on the floor. It was actually pretty hilarious. He was all out of breath and everything. And then he fucking pushed the ring onto me and basically forced me to put it on." Ian grumbled the last bit and folded his arms over his chest.

"Really? Well he had a booth with a bunch of tourist trap souvenirs and also mood rings. So I tried one on, and I poofed." Lana pondered, staring at her orange ring.

Ian and Lana looked at Vi, waiting for her to tell them of her experience with Tsunomichi at her airport.

"Gachapon." Vi answered, blank faced.

"Whoa whoa wait a minute. That's all that happened? Really?" Ian and Lana said at the same time.

"That's kinda lame." Ian added after a minute of thought.

"It was a poorly constructed cheap piece of shit gachapon. The stupid thing just popped open and took away all the fun of opening it. The ring was inside. Oh and the guy kept sweating, it was gross creepy." Vi scrunched up her face, remembering the man's many handkerchiefs.

Lana looked grossed out. "Wow." was her only comment.

Ian snickered, "Hahah man. Anyways, I think our shit's on that table."

The trio looked around and found they were in some sort of living room. In the room was a sand sectional sofa, cream-colored curtains, and a tan tinted table. Sitting on top of the table were a map of the town, three of what seemed to be the keys to the house, and three copies of a black and white checkered credit card. After further inspection, each card had a different name on the front for each of them.

They each grabbed one of each item and put it away safely.

"Alright so we have everything we need, now it's time for exploration. Where do you guys want to go first?" Lana asked the other two.

"Upstairs!" Vi yelled as she started running towards the black spiral staircase that led to her destination.

Ian stared in amazement at the girl running up the stairs, "Why upstairs when there's a downstairs?" He pointedly stood next to the trap door and motioned towards the ladder leading towards whatever was below.

Lana shrugged her shoulders, "Couldn't we just explore on the floor we're already on? Might as well become familiar with the ground floor of this house."

"That's boring! Nothing fun is ever on the first floor!" came a voice already halfway up the stairs.

"Heh. Nah. There's plenty of time for that later. Meanwhile, the underground awaits!" Ian yelled as he began his descent.

"Well…let's have a look around here…" Lana was going to move on, but then she remembered the fainted Tsunomichi. Feeling somewhat bad for the man, she got a pillow from the sofa and placed it under his head before she left to explore.

 **Upstairs**

Vi snickered to herself as she walked up the rest of the stairs. She reached the top of the stair landing and looked around the small hallway. The spiral staircase led to a circular area with four different unlabeled doors and a sunroof.

"Ohoho, time to see what kind of neat things are hidden around here."

She closed her eyes, spun in a circle, and chose a door at random. By chance, she happened to end up facing a light green door with a silver metal door knob.

"Alright let's find out what's behind door number one." She opened the door slowly, building as much suspense as possible. Sunlight shined through the door frame as it creaked open inch by inch.

"God bless us. It's a glorious game room." Vi silently thanked Checkerface for providing them with the room and proceeded to examine every inch of it.

There was an HD LED flat screen tv on a black tv stand against the wall, with many consoles on the ground. On the other wall were multiple shelves of game cases organized by name and series. In almost random locations on the walls were a couple of posters from big name games, a poster of the periodic table of gaming weapons, and a poster of ironic video game rules.

Vi was distracted from reading the different game titles when something moved outside a window. She tiptoed over to the window, moved the curtain aside, and peered outside. The window seemed to be facing the front yard and Vi adjusted the map of the house inside her head accordingly. She looked for the movement that caught her eye and recoiled back when a bird flew past the glass.

"Bird! Ahh cheese that was startling. Holy crap, it is beautiful outside." Vi recovered from the shocking bird appearance as she noted what sort of neighborhood they now lived in.

Deciding she was done examining the game room, she exited the room and wondered which one she would enter next. She looked at the remaining three doors.

"Might as well go straight across," she proclaimed as she walked straight across the hallway towards a light peach colored door with a white door knob. She opened the door into a pink beige covered room. "Oh my god, this has to be Lana's room. No one else would get a pink room."

Vi began to investigate the room. "Huh, there seems to be a flower theme going on here. A blue flower coffee table, a red flower bedspread, and, oh wow, actual flowers, that's a bit much, Checkerface. Are you trying to imply that she's a flower? Ohoho~" She snickered behind her hand.

"Hm, very minimalist." There was little furniture in the room, yet it seemed very cozy and inviting.

A brown tall dresser in the corner, a full sized bed with the aforementioned red flower bedsheets, the coffee table with four pillows on the ground around it, and shelves installed on the wall with a couple of books, a few orange scented candles, and oddly a bowl of plastic fruit.

On the walls, there were three posters. A list of astrological signs using a starry night sky background. A poster filled with fun facts about stars. Finally a poster of a periodic table of desserts. The ceiling held three star chandeliers, aligned in a triangle formation.

Next to the bed was a dark brown nightstand and on the nightstand was light pink lamp and next to the lamp and night stand was a white window framed with light pink curtains with dark pink flowers.

"Oooh another window~" Vi observed as she opened the curtains with a grand flourish. She gazed out into the backyard like a queen overlooking her realm. "We have a fucking pool. Sweet." She thought to herself that if the other room facing the backyard wasn't hers, she might pitch a fit. The backyard was absolutely glorious.

Vi figured she was about done snooping through Lana's room when she spied a glint behind the door she walked through.

"What's this I spy?" She pondered as she closed the bedroom door. Behind the door were two sliding mirrored doors. "Oh it's just a closet. Well, I wonder what kind of clothes Checkerface provided Lana with."

She slid one door open and suddenly she was blinded by a flood of pinks and white.

"Aaaaah it's too girly! How could you do this? I'm blind!" Vi yelled and covered her eyes as she shut the door as fast as she could.

"Oh my heavens," Vi clutched her chest. "I think that's enough snooping in her room for now." She quickly left the room, making sure to leave everything the way she found it.

"Alright, two down, two to go." The girl looked at the two remaining doors. "…Eenie meenie miney moe…Alright front room it is!"

She faced the light blue colored door with a silver metal door handle. "Alright it's either Ian's or mine," she declared, turning the handle.

Upon gazing the room, she raised an eyebrow. "Well. This is definitely Ian's room."

Ian's room looked like he took paint samples of various shades of blue from various hardware stores and just stuck them on the wall. Like the sky and ocean were suffocating the space. Like a patchwork of blue. Like a smurf exploded in the room covering everything with blue. Like that one girl who went to the chocolate factory and came out a giant blueberry. The point is the room was really damn blue.

"Oh boy, I wonder what Ian's favorite color is. Could it be yellow?" Vi muttered to herself sarcastically as she snooped through his room.

A few feet away from the door sat a small potted maidenhair fern and a blue shelf. The glass doors to the balcony were curtained with blinds that looked to be simulating rain with various streaks of blue to green to blue-green. The room was filled with all sorts of soft cushions, pillows, and beanbag chairs in various shades of blue. He had an alpine styled bed in the corner of the room decorated with a few throw pillows lying haphazardly. In the center of the room was a moderately sized white glass table on top of a vaguely floral printed rug. Hidden behind a pile of beanbags was a short white dresser.

Attached to the ceiling in multiple spots were various silver and blue wind chimes in various shapes. There were several lamps that hung from the ceiling that were designed to look like jellyfish and several strew across the floor that looked like water lilies. The walls had a 'Keep Calm and Drop That Bass' poster, several pictures of various weather conditions that involved rain, and various fandom memorabilia including a turquoise banner that read 'Rule the Court'.

"Why do you keep wind chimes indoors? Shouldn't you at least keep them closer to the windows or something?" Vi scoffed, heading towards the hidden dresser for more snooping. She picked a drawer at random and opened it. "Scandalous! It's Ian's sock drawer."

A sudden noise outside caused her to jump. She slowly turned her head towards the double doors. Outside, sitting on the balcony was a fat black cat.

"Oh my goodness, you are adorable." Vi immediately stood up and carefully walked to the doors, making sure not to scare away the cat.

She opened a door and delicately placed one foot onto the floorboards. The cat looked up. Vi stared straight into its eyes. The cat stared back. Vi leaned forward. The cat blinked. Vi brought her other foot outside. The cat raised one paw. Vi took a step forward. The cat twitched its tail. Vi raised one hand slowly. The cat put its paw back down. Vi slowly put her hand onto the cat's head and the cat pushed its head into her hand, beginning to purr softly. On the balcony was a standing shelf full of assorted potted plants that Vi paid barely any attention to as she petted the soft cat.

"I have been truly blessed today." Vi shed a single tear as she continued to pet the adorable creature.

After a while, the cat got up, stretched its legs, jumped onto the fence, and presumably walked into their backyard for more sunbathing. Vi followed suit and got up, stretching her slightly cramped legs.

"Aaahh that was relaxing…Alright I don't think there's anything else in Ian's room." She yawned lightly as she exited the boy's room. "Aha, I saved the best for last!"

Vi whistled the tune for The Final Countdown as she approached her lavender door with a black metal door handle. At last the final door opened and Vi stuck her head in, only to find to her utter amazement, an exact duplicate of her room from their original universe. Same white wall paint. Same purple bed with lavender sheets. Same white bookcase with the same books in alphabetical order by author. Same black desk table, same black desk chair. Same purple couch with the same black coffee table. Everything in the room was in the exact same position as her original room.

"What the fuck is this dark magic." She deadpanned with a blank face.

As she walked around her room, she took in everything with growing agitation. The room was unsettlingly familiar to her and she had a determined look on her face as she approached a pair of mirrored sliding closet doors.

"I swear if what I think is in here is actually in here, someone's going to pay for this," she muttered darkly as she cracked her knuckles.

She slid one of the doors open and looked down at a plain white dresser. She opened one of the drawers and stared into it blankly.

"Oh hell no!" Vi exclaimed as she looked into her underwear drawer.

 **Downstairs**

"Where are the lights when one needs to see?" Ian ran his hands along the walls for a switch, searching with the limited light he had from the trap door overhead. "Ah there it is!"

With a flip of the switch, the room lit up revealing its previously shadowed contents. The area before him was sectioned off into quadrants, each represented by different flooring. In between each section was a plain white door with a door sign. The leftmost was a triangular black and red bolded 'DO NOT ENTER' sign, which of course, Ian decided to ignore and come back to it later after his preliminary inspection of the basement. The middle was a teal circle with the word 'Bathroom' in white etched in cursive. It was a very pretty sign ok? The rightmost was a rectangular-ish grey sign that just had pictures of weapons on it, that Ian just assumed to be weapon storage.

"Wow…Holy, this is like everything I've kinda wanted for myself. A combat floor, a mini gym, and a weapons range goddamn. I mean…It's probably for our own benefit, but still…Damn…"

Ian then decided to move clockwise from his current position and turned to his left. There was a cushioned mat that was meant for sparring and martial arts, if the kicking dummies and ring out lines were any indication. "Wow this is hella sweet. The mats are firm enough to move around on, and yet soft enough to cushion a fall. Excellent. Egg-cellent. Hah." He moved one of the dummies to the center and readied his stance. A swift kick to the midsection provided a sound thunk. "Hmm. So it's lightweight to carry, but in terms of actually striking it, it seems to be very grounded and stable. How did he do that?"

Leaving the training mat alone, Ian walked towards the next section while observing the interior decoration of the basement. There was a thermostat near the entrance that was probably sensitive to temperature changes, as it already began trying to circulate cooler air into the room. The walls were all dependent on which section they were against, as the training mat had mirrored walls perfect for checking form. The equipment area had posters illustrating correct form and usage of the machine, as well as space for wall exercises. The last section, which looked like a target practice area, had multiple dummies and targets set up at different distances.

The next two stations were full of exercise equipment, enough to be considered a home gym. Ian whistled, "Upper body and lower body, huh? It looks like there are core machines towards the middle too. He really stocked us full of useful shit." He took a few minutes to walk through the machines and stations, and gaze in wonder at some of the newer machines that looked absolutely stupid.

Seeing as how he was already in the gym part of the floor, Ian took a quick peek into the bathroom. As it was fully equipped with private showers, private bathrooms, a shared bath and sauna, the bathroom was pretty impressive. It had charcoal and aqua floor tiles, with ocean and mountain views decorating the walls. With his quick inspection of the 'bathroom' done, Ian made his way out and door separating the gym from the last section.

The weapons room, as the sign showed. Opening the door, Ian was immediately greeted with a wide variety of weapons: long range, close quarters, one handed, two handed, projectiles, sharp and blunt weapons. "Dang. This is better stocked than like an armory or something. Ooooooh hey, maybe there's weapons I haven't used yet! This is going to be the first place I look through when I have some more free time."

Next to the door was a open range with a control panel that could switch out various types of testing fields for various projectile weapons. Among the choices were guns, bows, and bombs. "Hey…this could come in handy, at least for Lana. And maybe Vi if she wants to use her ruler-knife thing as a projectile."

Turning to face the remaining unknown, Ian grinned. "Fuck your rules. Wachaaaaaaaaaa!" He laughed as he kicked open the door. There was another ladder leading down into the abyss. "Damnerameram. Let's see if Lana found matches or something that I could use as a light." A pause. "And maybe get something to eat." And with that, Ian climbed up the ladder back to the ground floor.

 **Ground Floor**

As for Lana, she headed straight into the corridor across the living room, it was an L-shaped kitchen connected to the area specifically for the dining room. The kitchen, divided into three segments, the first consisted of a wall oven, a wall microwave, a gas stove bearing four burners, shelves and drawers filled with necessary cutlery and dinnerware. The second segment had various machinery on the countertops: toaster oven, coffee machine, waffle iron, deep fryer, ice cream machine, anti griddle, food processor, blender, bread maker, and rice cooker. Finally a well stocked pantry and stainless steel four door refrigerator.

Last but not least the third segment, which was none other than the island which had the sink, cutting boards, and cleaning kitchen utilities.

"…This kitchen is practically like one of those model kitchens used for cooking shows!" Lana exclaimed to herself in shock of everything she found in the kitchen. Internally happy of the fact that she gets to cook in one of her dream kitchens, but at the same times felt weirded out by how on point most of the snacks in the pantry were all of their favorites, "That's kind of stalkerish, and questionable as to how they figured out our taste in food."

Moving onwards to the dining room, the area had a similar neutral color schemes matching the living room. A white birch dining table paired with six beige chairs, and a branched chandelier holding electric candles in glass crystal placeholders. Upon turning on the light switch for the chandelier, Lana spotted aqua colored placemats for each chair. Finally a beautiful glass swan vase holding two pink roses, a lily of the valleys, forget-me-nots, and one white lily decorating the center of the table.

"The dining room looks like it can be used for a housewarming party…a very expensive housewarming party." Lana nodded to herself setting the idea as a reminder, "Maybe when we've settled in more, then next time we can do one?"

Continuing to the backyard connected by a sliding glass door paired with a screen in the dining room, Lana spotted a rectangular shaped fiberglass pool which shocked her for a moment.

"A pool…really?" Lana wondered exactly how Checkerface and Tsunomichi managed to get a pool, especially in a cramped town like Namimori. "This house seems more similar to the ones in the U.S. rather than a house in Japan. How in the world were they able to fit a pool?"

Besides the pool, the backyard in general had a zen garden in a small three foot square corner. Strangely enough, there was a fat black cat lounging on the warm sand, disturbing the lines that someone had carefully made. Other than that, there was a white solid board gothic top fence surrounding the area. Simple, but extravagant by all means. Returning inside the dining room, Lana made her way down the small hallway leading to the spiral staircase only to find two white doors using silver metal doorknobs before the stairs. One on the left and the other on the right.

"Let's see…eeny meenie miney moe!" Lana's hand pointed toward the door on the left. Turning the doorknob slowly, she peeked inside to find what seems to be a normal office room. The main internet router was beside the computer and laser printer that were both sitting on top of the black and white checkered desk. Further inspection led to a checkered landline telephone, checkered book shelves, checkered futon, and finally a checkered desk chair.

"Since it's mostly checkered patterned, I'm assuming this is Tsunomichi's office. I doubt Checkerface would use this room due to Tsunomichi being placed as our caretaker," she pondered as she left the room.

Finally the other door was merely a bathroom following the usual color schemes as the rest of the ground floor. Toilet, a silver metal towel rack bearing three white towels, mirror, wall mounted white marble sink with a bottle of aloe vera liquid soap, last a birch cabinet holding toiletries and bathroom cleaning supplies.

"I think that's it for the ground floor." Closing the bathroom door behind her, Lana left to meet up Ian and Vi for what they discovered from their floors.

As Lana walked back into the living room, she spotted Ian sitting on the couch, finishing a sandwich. "Hey hey! You find anything interesting on this floor?" Ian managed to say in between bites of food.

She looked at him and his sandwich full hands, "Where did you get the sandwich from?"

"The kitchen obviously. I didn't see you there though so I guess you were elsewhere?" ' _It was a delicious sandwich really'_ , Ian thought as he stared at his now sandwich-less hands. A toasted double decker, mayo-spread, turkey breast and ham sandie with a few slices of swiss cheese, some tomatoes and crisp lettuce leaves. Yum.

"Oh my gosh, did you see it? We have an amazing kitchen and dining room combo meant for rich people," Lana gushed, before muttering, "This house's kitchen is practically the dream kitchen I've always wanted, although I find it creepy that they have all of the snacks we've eaten since we were young."

He nodded, "Yeah I saw it. It's a hella nice kitchen dude. The fridge and pantry are chock full of stuff. That's how I made my sandwich. Speaking of food, I'm still hungry after eating mine. And if I'm hungry from that light training in that weird space, you guys must be just as hungry, if not more. You did more training after all. Hey hey! Let's make more sandwiches for lunch!"

"Sounds good." Lana agreed, and began walking towards the kitchen with Ian following. "By the way, we somehow have a pool in the backyard along with a zen garden. Actually…do you think the zen garden has anything to do with Checkerface? Because I don't think any of us particularly care for zen gardens."

"Ehhhh. Maybe? Or it could be that one dude? Tuna-me? Or whatever his name was? But whatever. A pool dude! We have a fricking pool! In the backyard! That is capital A -mazing." Ian tried his best to convey his excitement for said pool as well as he could with pieces of ham and lettuce in his hands.

"Yes." A wry smile formed against Lana's face upon the pool outside, "Well I'm kind of skeptical as to how they even managed to fit both the garden and the pool here. I mean…isn't Namimori more of a cramped neighborhood? I think…I could be wrong…but doesn't the name of the place sound similar to that one manga we read in middle school? Something about a tutor and an idiot middle school protagonist."

In the meantime, Lana took out a few basic ingredients meant for a quick sandwich. Turkey, ham, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, and some mayo. "Do you want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich also?"

Ian turned towards Lana with his most serious face and solemnly said to her, "Give me ALL the sandwiches. But yeah. Namimori does sound like some anime-ish town. Unless it's real? But it does sound really familiar, like Cervello."

"Hm…" Lana hummed thinking a bit on what Ian stated while cutting a few slices of tomato, "Vi might want the peanut butter and jelly more than the turkey sandwich I'm making since she hates tomatoes."

Placing the tomatoes on three slices of white bread, Lana added turkey slices on each one. Then Ian threw on a few leaves of lettuce along with the cheese. Finally using a butter knife, Lana spread mayonnaise on the lone slices of bread beside each combination and thus situated the mayo-bread atop of the three , "Turkey sandwiches complete, and now for the PB and J's. Hey Ian, could you toss me the peanut butter and jelly jars?"

Grabbing six more slices of white bread, Ian slid over to the pantry to toss Lana the two jars. Lana, slightly panicking on the fact that he literally tossed them, immediately dropped the butter knife next to the plate. Dashing over to catch the two jars thrown before her just in the nick of time, "Please don't throw them, specifically the jam jar, I didn't mean it in literal terms. Glass items aren't nice once broken."

Ian rolled his eyes at Lana. "You asked me to toss them. So I tossed them."

Whereas Lana, ignoring Ian's return, continued on making the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches meant for all three of them, especially Vi. Once the sandwiches were all prepared and plated, Lana suggested, "Wanna eat these in the living room? I think Vi's still exploring upstairs."

"Sure." Ian agreed while snatching a turkey sandwich from the plate Lana held. Advancing over to the living room, Lana set the plate on the table while swiping a turkey sandwich. Dropping herself onto the sofa next to Ian, Lana decided to ask, "So what else did you discover in the house?"

Temporarily putting down his sandwich, Ian turned to Lana and began recounting his tale of the basement. "That's right! The basement is like a fucking gym dude! There's actual gym equipment, of course, but like there's a combat mat, and a firearm range and a weapons closet! You should see the bathroom too! There's a sauna and a really nice bath area. Although…I'm really interested in that one door that said to not enter. It was too dark down there so I didn't go. I came up to see if we had a lighter or some kind of light that I could use to see."

"I see." Lana mumbled between bites of the delicious food.

Ignoring Lana's inaudible reply, Ian continued. "So in conclusion, yes. I would like to create an expedition to explore that unknown territory as soon as possible. I am willing to pay a tangerine, singular, as a reward."

Lana was about to mention the office owned by our resident fainted caretaker, however sudden loud footsteps rained down the staircase. Strangely, a door appeared at the bottom of the steps rather than the girl they expected to see. They were about to call out Vi's name when the door was kicked open.

"Guys, holy fuck!" Vi held the pose for a couple of seconds before continuing to yell. "You're never going to believe this! Wait what the heck? Where did you get sandwiches?" Her train of thought was derailed by the appearance of food. "I can't believe you're eating a sandwich."

Giving a pointed look to Vi, Ian responded after finishing his sandwich, "Listen that was my second sandwich, get your facts straight."

"You could have some," Lana offered gently pushing the plate of food to Vi's direction on the table, "There's some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches since I know you dislike the taste of tomatoes."

"Aw yes, sustenance." Vi dropped onto the couch and grabbed a pbj, shoving half of it into her mouth. She attempted to say something but the combination of a full mouth and peanut butter caused her speech to become unintelligible.

Ian simply looked at Vi in disgust. "Finish your food before speaking you gross sloth."

"Do you need milk to wash down the peanut butter?" Lana kindly suggested to the girl.

Vi finished her mouthful of deliciousness and cleared her throat. "I was gonna say that this would go great with milk, but nah, I'll get it myself. Anyways, like I started saying before, both of you have to check out your rooms like right now," she heavily insisted.

The two glanced at each other for a moment wondering about Vi's insistence before returning their gaze at said girl, "Why?"

"Just go. You'll see for yourselves." She waved a hand towards the stairs, vanishing the door.

They go upstairs, curious from Vi's words, and quickly explore the rooms. The two couldn't believe what they saw, the similarities of the rooms in their original world were uncanny.

Ian took a few cautious steps into his room in a mix of both shock and amazement. "Yo…what the actual fuck man? This is my room…? How in the world?" The ceiling was covered in a mixture of blue and silver dangling windchimes and patterned lanterns. Ian grinned as he tapped a few of the chimes to hear their melody, remembering how he modified the ones he got from the store to have different tone ranges. In turning on the lights, the lanterns projected colors and patterns that made it seem like the room was plunged underwater. After looking under his pillow to find a small satin pouch containing cinnamon-scented beads, in the exact same spot as in his own room, he grimaced. "I guess it's not that much of a surprise, considering he's a dirty thief."

Before heading out, he paused in front of the white dresser covered in ink drawings that he recalled drawing throughout school. They were mostly random doodles, a few attempts at drawing animals and other scenery, mostly the one outside his window, a few versions of his friends, and some varied game references. Looking at it suspiciously, he slowly pulled out the bottom left drawer. What he saw left him almost speechless, "Even my fucking socks. Really?! Those are my special order socks, that son of a bitch."

Meanwhile in Lana's room, she was having a similar experience.

She gaped while taking in every detail of the room, "T-This can't be…the ground floor was enough to make me cry for my wallet, but this is beyond the stalking ideas I had about Checkerface and Tsunomichi earlier! Heck there's even actual Gerberas in the vase!"

She flinched, taking one of the flowers out of the vase sitting atop of the coffee table, it was genuine alright. From petal to stem including the fresh scent lingering off the flowers, it wasn't fake at all. Setting the gerbera back to its respective placement, Lana scanned the walls to find three awfully familiar posters.

"How in the world were they able to get these posters?! The astrology posters were only made by my brother, there's no other replica of them!" Lana touched the posters taped on the wall, and froze in realization. Turning her head in the direction of her dresser, Lana's breathing hitched.

"D-Don't tell me…" The girl's face began to drain the more she slowly walked over to the dresser. Placing her hand on the right knob, Lana pulled the first drawer in silence. Until Lana muttered in a monotonous voice, "I don't even want to know how they folded these."

Lana walked out into the hall, unable to comprehend what she just saw in her recreated room. She spotted Ian standing outside his blue door.

"Dude." Ian commented to the girl, "You're pale."

"Don't even ask." Lana said in a monotone.

The two walked downstairs in silence, disturbed from what they just saw.

Vi was sitting cross legged on the couch, drinking a glass of milk and eating directly out of a large bag of chips that was already half eaten. "So was it creepy or what?" She stared daggers at Tsunomichi, who was still on the ground unconscious.

"Absolutely." Ian sighed as he threw himself onto the couch. "This guy is really a kind of creep, isn't he? Gimme some chips bro."

In a slight agitated tone, Lana expressed her dismay to Vi while situating herself beside her two friends, "He got everything in exact detail, minus the fresh gerberas sitting in the vase. I can't even believe they managed to get the special posters my brother made for me back home."

Vi's voice escalated as she grew more indignant. "My underwear drawer! Their filthy mitts were inside my drawers! How will I sleep at night?! On silk sheets with satin pillow covers, I guess, since they took those too!"

"They copied my room setup. Do you know how long that took to actually work how I wanted it? One of a kind too!" Ian groaned in pain, rubbing at his face in agony.

"…I don't even want to know what they did when they were arranging our clothes." Placing her face into the palms of her hand, Lana mumbled discomfortable of the dresser incident that happened a few minutes ago.

After the trio's shared words of their replica rooms, a groan from the ground sounded. It seems like their dear caretaker decided to regain consciousness at a very poor time.

"Good morning, you creepy pervert." Vi suddenly appeared in his line of vision.

Vi's face disappeared, only to be replaced by Ian's. "Sup, you freaky thieving teleporting bastard."

Tsunomichi, only barely conscious moments before, screamed bloody murder as he scrambled to stand up. Once he was righted, he coughed a few times in embarrassment before trying to regain a little of his dignity.

"H-hello…again." Poor Tsunomichi trembled in fear of the two's increasingly aggressive behavior toward him. He almost immediately in the back of his mind regretted what he spoke next, "How have you been finding everything? I hope it's been satisfactory?"

"Satisfactory?!" Vi was about to murder the poor quivering man. "If you think that finding out that you somehow duplicated my underwear is satisfactory, you've got another thing coming!" she snarled out, baring her teeth like she would rip his throat out without a second thought.

Ian moved closer to him and managed to look intimidating even though he was shorter than Tsunomichi. Grabbing his tie and yanking him down to face level, Ian looked about ready to deck him a good one, "You must be kidding me? How did you manage to replicate my room when it was self-modified? I doubt you'd find that shit in a store anywhere you piece of shit. How much of a creep are you?"

Lana watched them threaten Tsunomichi, who looked ready to faint again. She debated internally with herself what she should do.

In his fear, Tsunomichi managed to yelp out, "Wait! There's still important things I haven't told you about the game!"

Ian frowned, still very upset, but released the tie and took a few steps back, and rested his hands on his hips. "Well then." He said with a sneer, "Out with it."

Lana, finishing her short inner turmoil, removed her face from the palms of her hand. She got up from the couch and sped walk over to the two currently terrifying the supposed subordinate of Checkerface.

"You guys." Lana set a hand on each respective shoulder of the two, not wanting to yell at Tsunomichi, since he didn't see what Checkerface had in store for him. Although deep down, Lana wanted to do the same thing Vi and Ian were doing to Tsunomichi; however the man was attempting to say something. Thus the need for them to stop shoving their complaints at Tsunomichi was brought to her attention, "He's trying to say something to us. Let's hear what he has to say first of all, and push our anger toward Checkerface since he's the sole reason as to why we're here. Tsunomichi was probably only following orders like an obedient assistant."

Tsunomichi literally wanted to cry, though he felt somewhat grateful of Lana being there to stop them.

"I am calm." Ian shrugged off Lana's hand from his shoulder and glanced at her. "And I fully understand that too. But he was also the one who brought us here."

"I'll listen to what he says, but I don't have to like it." Vi walked past Lana and turned to face Tsunomichi. Quickly, behind Lana's back, she made eye contact with Tsunomichi and drew a finger across her throat.

"Vi, I saw that." Lana gave a huff and pointed at the couch, "Go sit there and eat your chips. Don't make me go confiscate your DS that's probably in the game room I saw earlier or better yet, I'll change the wifi password to make the internet only accessible without you."

Vi sighed heavily. "Alright, _mother_." She thumped onto the couch with exaggerated movements and shoved a handful of chips into her mouth, looking bored already.

Tsunomichi straightened his tie and cleared his throat before beginning, "What you have been given are called the Sky Rings. Each flame color has a characteristic and ability attributed with them. Orange sky, cielo, is harmony, which depending on the kind used is stable or powerful. Red storm, tempesta, is disintegration, which can decay whatever it touches. Blue rain, pioggia, is tranquility, which can be used to induce stillness. Yellow sun, sereno, is activation, which has the power to stimulate activity . Green lightning, fulmine, is hardening, which can strengthen or solidify objects. Purple cloud, nuvola, is propagation, which can increase the size and number of items. Indigo mist, nebbia, is construction, which aids in the creation of illusions."

"Your primary flames, moon, star, and wind, are slightly different in a sense that they are not native to this world. They are a newly made, original flame that belongs to you only. The moon is a balance within itself, a balance of creation and deconstruction. The star is relatively powerful in both supporting and inflicting different statuses on others. The wind is rather vicious in destruction and transportation potential. However, in terms of power and ability, that is completely dependent on yourselves and your imaginative ability." Looking up from his notes, he jumped slightly at the trio's intense stares. "It is uhhhh…Probably better for you three to experience it yourself first. We do have a-aa-a practice room available downstairs, if-if you looked down there already…"

Ian grinned slyly. "Actually, why don't you join us, I'm sure we could use your guidance."

Catching on to what Ian was doing, Vi smiled innocently, all trace of the previous girl who was ready to murder hidden behind a sweet mask, "Yes of course! You would be a great help to us."

"Could you guys please stop bullying him?" Lana frowned at the two, dissatisfied with their responses to Tsunomichi, "We'll figure it out on our own otherwise I'm adding more to the punishment that's willing to be set in motion."

"R-right…" Gulping down his choked saliva, Tsunomichi brought up a topic in particular, "Oh that's right! Master Checkerface didn't finish mentioning the rest of the rules for the game, correct?"

Taking out a folded piece of paper from his dress coat, Tsunomichi straightened himself to announce the complete set of rules for their game, "First and foremost, you three aren't allowed to tell anyone about your primary flames. Due to them being foreign from this specific world, it is a taboo to say a peep of it! Second, you mustn't say anything about your true age. It'd be definitely quite a disastrous situation if the people of this world find out your true age. You have to keep in mind that all of you are middle schoolers going to Namimori Middle School while playing the game. Third, in this game you're not allowed to interfere into the plot situated to this particular world. Fourth, as serious as the previous rule, this one reminds that none of you are to kill any of the main story members. Last but not least, none of you are allowed to tell the characters residing here the truth about themselves in your world. It would upset the balance of the storyline and cause massive confusion for the characters realizing their true identities."

Finishing off the list, Tsunomichi quickly handed the list of rules to Lana, as he was beyond terrified of the other two. Runni—I mean, retreating to a safe distan—HIS ORIGINAL POSITION, he coughed to regain their attention. "Your uniforms will be arriving tomorrow, as well as some student identification cards, and then you three will be going to school! In the meantime, feel free to explore Namimori at your leisure, as it will be your residence for the foreseeable future. If you need me, I'll be in my office." Once he finished, he turned to the hallway and entered the room on the left.

Once the door shut behind him, Lana stared at the paper in her hands. Then returned her gaze over to Ian and Vi.

"Should we look over the rules again?" Lana proposed, taking the paper over to the others.

 **RULES**

 **# No telling about the primary flames**

 **# No telling about your true ages/backgrounds**

 **# No interference with the main storyline**

 **# No killing of main characters**

 **# No telling characters the truth about themselves in your world**

Ian pointed out, "Well you know, for being the guiding rules, they sure aren't specific enough, there seems to be a lot of loopholes in this game. Goddamn."

The trio decided to make a list of the ways they could bend the rules without getting punished on the back side of the sheet they received.

 **LOOPHOLES:**

 **# No telling = No saying. We can "demonstrate" in other ways.**

 **# It's only recommended we act our age.**

 **# Main doesn't mean everything or everyone.**

 **# It doesn't say that we can't _hurt_ the main story members**

 **#There's really no point in doing so.**

After making the list, they were satisfied with what they had come up with and decided to listen to Tsunomichi for once and venture outside.

* * *

FFnet really kinda irritates me with its shitty formatting goddamn

you should also check us out on our ao3 page! it's called 'Fall For Me (Remastered)' cowritten by lazura234 and lenkachu! (not me b/c i dont actually have an ao3 account that i use on a by-to-by basis. lol)

and this is pretty much as far as we've written. well, we have ch3 but thats it so far. we're currently working on ch4 but that'll probably take a while. midterms/finals and all.

ripperoni in spaghetti.


	3. Out on the Town!

hello hello we are back with chapter 3

happy bday to the resident dangerous lady: Haru Miura

praise to the khr goddess Akira Amano, we lowly believers offer up our measly OC fics as tribute

word count is about 22,720. ⋌༼ •̀ ⌂ •́ ༽⋋

also for simplicity's sake, i'll just start putting the title here for the rest of the chapters.

 **Chapter 3- Out on the Town!**

* * *

Before leaving the house, the trio decided to change into more suitable clothes for their new setting. They went up to their rooms and met in the living room when they were ready to set out.

Vi tied up her hair into a high ponytail and was now sporting a medium black crossbody. She switched her leggings to a pair of black shorts, but kept on her lilac tank top. Lana exchanged the clothes meant for her adult self for a peach colored t-shirt bearing a red cherry decal, paired with jean capris to match. Ian changed out of his now extremely baggy clothes to a more adjustable pair of basketball shorts and yet another tank top, but this time it was black with a musical score decal on it.

Once they were all decently changed, they met back in the living room where the map of the town waited for them on top of the table. Quickly realizing that both Ian and Vi would probably have a fight over where to go, Lana grabbed the map and unfolded it.

On the map, there were several locations that were already circled and labeled, including the school they were supposed to go to, their house, the nearest market and shopping district, a post office, a few restaurants (including a certain sushi shop) with small notes rating them 5 out of 5 checkered hats, a few shrines, some parks scattered here and there, an arrow pointing off the map that was labeled simply as 'Kokuyo Land', a circle in a random residential area, and a few circles around nothing.

Pointing at the shopping district, Vi declared, "I want to go shopping! We could use some clothes, right?"

"We don't really need to go shopping since our clothes have shrunk a bit, haven't they?" Lana pointed out to the excited girl. "Plus the clothes in our closets have also somehow shrunk."

"Let's go shopping anyways!" Vi whined, wanting to go on a shopping spree. "One can never have too many clothes. Especially with our new _unlimited_ bank accounts!"

Ian shrugged, adjusting the hem of his pants, "I needed some shirts or some better pants anyways." A pause. "And some belts too I guess."

Two against one, so Lana reluctantly sighed and agreed to go shopping with the two. Folding up the map and slipping it into her bag, she saw her phone and showed it to the others. "By the way, did you guys find your phones in your luggage upstairs too?"

Nodding sagely as she pulled her phone out of her purse, "Yep and I tried calling my house but it wouldn't connect at all." Vi recounted.

Ian patted his pocket where his own phone was resting. "Yeah that's understandable, you know, considering that we're in another world and all."

Lana looked upset at this knowledge, but started going through her contacts, "Alright, but I'm pretty sure that we can still call each other—" She was cut off by her phone singing the Love Hime song.

Vi held her phone triumphantly in front of her, "Haha! It does work. Calling each other. Also I can't believe you have that as your ringtone."

"No one can stop the power of the Love Hime song." Lana reminded Vi and almost tried to push up her nonexistent glasses, "Besides it's infectiously addicting to listen to."

Ian watched this exchange in silence, only responding with a sigh. "Alright, ignoring all of that, if anything happens we just contact each other. In the unlikely event that we separate I suppose."

Everyone took a picture of the map with their phones so they wouldn't get lost if anything happened. Once they stepped out of the house, they locked the door using their new house keys.

"So shopping district it is?" Lana asked the two again to confirm their choice.

"Yeah, I'm curious to see what the fashion here is like," Vi wondered out loud. "How different do you think this world will be from our world?"

"Don't just talk about this kind of stuff in public, you never know who could be listening. We should come up with some sort of code later." Ian nagged, as the group started walking towards their destination. Until a certain someone began to increase their speed, "Vi you dick! Quit walking so fast! Why are you always like this?!"

"Hey, it's not my fault you can't handle your short legs," Vi shrugged innocently, hands in the air, and grinned sideways at Ian.

"Shut up, not my fault. Don't forget I'm actually taller than you when we're older." Ian tried as a rebuttal, but it unfortunately fell short of insulting.

"Great, now your external appearances match your internal ages," Lana pointed out to the two bickering friends as she made a small grin at her next words, "You actual children."

"Gosh Lana." Vi sniffed softly, pretending to wipe away a single tear. "Were you always such a mean 13 year old?" Putting a hand on her chest, the girl acted as if she were extremely offended.

"I'm going to suffer forever from the both of you." Lana heaved a sigh to herself.

In the midst of their conversation, a certain person just happened to be passing by. Overhearing snippets of their strange conversation, the figure began to follow them, curious about this trio.

"I still can't get used to this…we have to go through our teen years all over again…" Ian bemoaned the fact that he would have to hit the gym once again to get into a decent-enough shape, not to mention the training he would have to do to regain his flexibility.

Vi patted Ian on the head, pretending to console him. "If anything, we'd probably get better grades in school this time around. Imagine all the sleep we could get during class!"

Lana frowned in disapproval. "No sleeping during class! And if you could deal with middle school once, you can do it again!"

The person narrowed their eyes toward the trio, suspicious from their words. When the trio stopped to look into the window display of an accessory shop, the figure quickly, let's say, 'borrowed' the wallet from Lana's bag.

A glance at the ID card inside told them everything they needed to confirm their suspicions. They furrowed their brows in perplexion and returned the wallet to the bag, without the owner ever suspecting a thing. There were plans to be made and people to be confronted, so they took off.

In the meantime, the trio, unaware that they had just been pickpocketed, continued with their shopping. They entered the accessory store, each heading over to their respective interests.

"I want the bow hair clip, I really do." Lana contemplated between a hair clip and a necklace she spotted from the window out of interest, "The black bow clip or the metallic silver star necklace?"

The clip was mostly made up from a black ribbon tied onto a barrette while the necklace consisted of a silver-colored star made up of metal held on a chain. The bow would look good as a daily wear whereas the necklace could do pretty well with outings around town, she remembered in the past that she never had time to buy something to be cute or anything. All that was in Lana's mind were mostly studying to get into medical school. Not a single interest was made, but she was quite fond of being able to do this again.

"Then again I could buy both." Checkerface did give them an unlimited bank account, although at first Lana perished the idea of splurging money. Lana decided that only this time she would be guilty for spending on something more than what she needed most. She didn't hesitate when she brought the two items over to the cashier to pay, "Guilty as charged."

Vi was busy looking at the earrings, grateful that she had gotten her ears pierced at a young age and wouldn't have to get them repierced after the age change. "Hoops are kind of a bold statement, but studs are always in fashion. Pearls are nice, if not a little mature for a teenager. Dangling earrings might be too flashy for a kid. A simple gem would do nicely, although plain silver works just as well," she pondered out loud.

"So many options to choose from. Ooo owls!" Vi spotted a pair of small owl shaped earrings. They were studs with the outline of an owl in metal and tiny black gems for its eyes. There were many different animal earrings in the display alongside it, like doves and cats. "Ah I want them all, they're so cute! Wait, I could totally get them all with my fancy new card. Bless you creepy old man." She grabbed all the cute earrings she wanted, including the owls, a pair of cats, plain silver small hoops, a simple gold chained ear cuff, and a moon phases earring set. A shop attendant handed Vi a basket when they saw how many items she was holding.

As she inspected her new earrings, she walked past the ring display and caught sight of a purple gem that reminded her of her new ring. "Well, I guess since I'm adding a ring to my outfits now,, I might as well get a few more." Vi leaned in to get a better view of the different designs. "Gold rings are a bit tacky if they're not top quality. Silver rings are better since almost anyone can wear them. Although you wouldn't see a middle schooler walking around flashing a diamond ring. Colored gems are good, too, although I'm pretty sure no one would wear a mood ring all the time…" She made a face, thinking of their own mood rings. She decided on a plain black band that was engraved with a silver crescent moon and a silver snake with inset black eyes that could wrap around a finger.

Taking her basket over to the cashier, she noticed a sheer lavender scarf that matched her outfit. Making a quick decision, she grabbed the scarf and added it to her purchase. Vi mentally thanked Checkerface again for the money, already planning what to buy at the next store.

Ian was browsing through the store when the stand of arm bangles caught his attention. "Ooo dang holy shit. These are hella nice…Those fancy dangly ones won't do jack shit, but I suppose they are aesthetically pleasing to some people. Just give me the simple bangles with like maybe one design on them. Although they wouldn't look nice on my current figure sadly. I'll keep this in mind when I can fit them better." He began to walk past the display, when he turned on his heel. "Pshhhhh what am I saying. I'll buy them now for my personal collection. Heheheh excellent. Eggcellent." A silver bangle that reminded him of wind and notes was added to the basket.

The next aisle that he stopped at was for jewelry. "I'm not that big of a fan, but it can't hurt to look for some more necklaces and earrings. Oh sweet. Wind chime earrings." Ian snickered, "Vi is going to complain that I have too many wind chimes, but you can never have too many!" He grabbed a few of the simpler stud earrings, and a cuff earring that looked like a sword and shield. "Nice. Now necklaces. Simple is best. I have no idea what Vi thinks, getting such over the top things. What happens if you fall or get hit? It's going to go straight to the bone and you'll bruise at least." The one he settled for was a white woven dreamcatcher design, with three feathers.

Ian was pretty happy with his purchases, usually one or two things would be enough to satisfy him. Today, it was a splurge day. Stepping out of the store with his bought goods he chuckled, "Thanks Checkerface, you creepy stalking bastard."

Next door to the accessory shop was a clothing store, and after glancing inside, they all decided to browse through.

Ian went straight to the bottoms section in hopes of finding better fitting pants. There was hope for his wardrobe to be found in cargo and sweat pants, some jeans, and shorts. Most of them were relatively simple in design, maybe he had grabbed one or two of those nice exercise leggings, so what? Ian figured that his figure currently could make them work nicely and snuck a few circle skirts into the basket for himself later.

The next area was shirts, in which case Ian got a lot of. More tank tops, ones that would fit his current physique at least, some t-shirts, a few long sleeved shirts, and four different colored plaid jackets. A few that he liked in particular included a navy blue tee with a trail of clouds, a painted space shirt, and a tee showing a crow taking flight. Ian gathered his choices in his arms and headed over to pay when the sundresses section caught his eye. "One wouldn't hurt I guess." Glancing around to make sure that neither Vi nor Lana saw him, he grabbed a white and green layered hi-low sundress and rushed the cashier.

Lana browsed through a section filled with pastel colored blouses, debating whether she should get some more until she came across the latter half. Mostly full of skirts, which silently made Lana cringe a bit by some of their lengths. Not to mention the shorts. Speed walking past the skirt and short aisle, Lana made a beeline for the pants and capris area of the store.

Sliding through the hangers of pants and capris for the right size, Lana finally found a white capri pant to go well with most of the pastel colored blouses hanging in her closet. Better yet, Lana managed to discover a black skort sitting within the capris. Probably a shopper gave up trying to return it to the previous aisle, lucky for her the skort is just right.

"Thank goodness this store sells skorts." Once she found a few more skorts in both brown and navy, Lana headed over to the hats section. Lana pondered a bit on which kind of hat she'd decided to get. The brown yarn beanie with a cute button accent, the nice straw sun hat adorning a blue ribbon with white polka dots, and finally a jean designed baseball cap. They all weren't too bad.

"Would I care to splurge again?" Lana knew she would regret the minute she headed to the cashier with all three. However, it wouldn't hurt to have three new hats. Hats were a necessity for facing the weather, "I would, and I shall."

Taking the clothes and hats over to the person at the register, Lana settled by giving a smile to the cashier, "Hi, I'd like to pay for these."

Once Lana became content in buying the new sets of clothes to add on, she decided to make her way outside the shop to wait.

Out of the corner of her eye, Lana spotted Vi walking in and out of the dressing rooms with arms full of clothes. She grabbed several pairs of black skinny jeans, one pair of jean shorts, several pairs of leggings in different colors, and several skirts of varying lengths. She walked out with two pairs of jeans, a dark blue pair of leggings, a black pleated skirt, a red pleated skirt, and a long flowing gray maxi skirt.

Putting her chosen items in a shopper tote, Vi went over to look at tops. She picked out several t-shirts with slogans like "I'd rather be sleeping" or "Nobody cares" and other shirts with designs like cute animals or flowers. Several tank tops of multiple colors, two sweatshirts, a plain black jacket, a blue hoodie, a purple blouse, three plaid button-downs, a long sleeved blouse, two short sleeved blouses, and three sleeveless sundresses all went into the cart after a short inspection. The dressing room attendant gaped a little at the amount of clothes Vi had selected before waving her into a room.

When she was content with her appearance, she left the dressing room, leaving with two tank tops, the black jacket, the purple blouse, a pink plaid button-down, and two sundresses, one in cream and one in white with red accents. As she was in line for the register, she realized a detail she had forgotten until that moment.

"Why did I get this many clothes? We have a school uniform." Her eyebrows scrunched looking at her chosen clothes, wondering if it was worth it. "Screw it. It's not my money, make it rain." The cashier was taken aback at the sheer amount of clothes the girl had brought, but said nothing.

Thus, Checkerface's bank account took its second hit of the day.

Vi was carrying four bags at this point, while Lana had two small bags, and Ian had two tiny bags and one large bag. Taking a detour on the way home, they spotted a supermarket and decided to re-stock up their kitchen even though it was barely used.

"This would go a lot quicker if we split up," Vi pointed out. "We all know what we like and dislike."

"Wow Vi, you and your _efficiency_." Ian rolled his eyes. "Alright, I'll get drinks and frozen goods since I was heading there anyways."

"Get snacks too. Lana can get produce and the bakery." Vi thought for a moment before continuing. "So that leaves meat, dairy, and canned/boxed stuffs for me."

"Okay, any specific requests before we set out to our zones?" Lana asked.

"Not too much veg." Vi made a face. "But lots of fruits is good. What kind of meat do you want?"

Ian just looked at Vi square in the face and said quietly, "All. But fish in particular. And those quick grill meats."

Grabbing a cart and heading over to produce, Lana first checked the tomatoes to replace the ones used earlier for sandwiches, "Even if Vi hates them, it's still good for us. "

Glancing around for any other vegetables on sale, she grabbed a few more plastic bags, "Then let's get those mushrooms, zucchini, and broccoli too since they go well with stir-fry. It's a good thing there's already some cabbage in the refrigerator."

Lana pondered back on what other vegetables were in the fridge combined with the ones she had in her cart. Soon a worker arrived to restock the vegetables, the person brought out a few sets of cauliflower and bean sprouts which were not on sale but were at a good pricing.

"The cauliflower and bean sprouts also for later." Heading over swiftly, Lana grabbed a few more of the vegetables and wrapped each in plastic bags to place into the cart. She proceeded to head over to the fruits aisle.

"Strawberries?" Lana would get them if only they were in season, but looking at the prices and seeing which fruits were on sale, she decided to buy something else. "Since the persimmons are on sale, that means it's autumn here…hm, maybe some pears too although persimmons are better crunchy than soft."

Once she finished taking a pound each of pears and persimmons, Lana walked over to the bakery section wondering what baked goods she could get.

"There's the milk bread, a certain person definitely would eat all of it before the rest of us do." Lana could already imagine the culprit stealing the milk bread from the kitchen, "Red bean paste bread…cream puff bread…curry bread…Vi might like the red bean paste taiyaki."

Ian popped out next to the cart from nowhere. With a box of donut holes. He gently-not-so-gently shoved them in the cart and while looking straight at Lana, he whispered, "D holes" and ran off for more groceries.

Startled by Ian's sudden appearance out of nowhere, Lana nearly screamed before realizing it was only Ian with a box of donut holes. Taking a deep breath, Lana muttered to him while pinching the bridge of her nose, "Really Ian?"

Resuming her original goal, Lana made her decision, "Might as well get the curry and cream puff bread along with a loaf of white bread since we practically used up the last one for the sandwiches."

Thinking that she bought enough, Lana was going to head over to the cashier only to meet with the smell of fried karaage. Halting in her steps, Lana slowly glanced over to find boxes of freshly cooked karaage. However…there was one problem. It looked like this supermarket had those half price hour sales, and karaage is gonna be on sale in three…two…one…

Dashing like a crazy madwoman, Lana dove right into the emerging crowd of home-stay mothers and tired ones that recently came out of work. She wasn't going to lose to these women, Lana would get her karaage and celebrate her success with vegetable stir-fry.

A glint shone in the corner of her eye, Lana went after the first one she spotted immediately only to have a businesswoman's hand grab the box at the same time. Upon raising her head, Lana could see the woman glare directly at her. There's no way she's gonna lose to this woman, Lana thought, tightening her grip over the box. When the woman did the same, the two continued to hold their grounds until the box of karaage started to have nail markings over it.

The woman attempted to shove the box out of Lana's hands, but unfortunately for the businesswoman doing that act was the wrong choice. Especially for someone as determined as Lana. Instead of Lana's hands being forced off, it was the businesswoman's.

Lana muttered silently while giving off a scowl toward the woman, "There's no way I'm losing this karaage."

"Is that girl really a middle schooler?" was all the businesswoman uttered the minute Lana returned to her cart.

Pleased with her victory, Lana headed towards the register with her haul.

Meanwhile, Ian brandished his own cart in the direction of the snackety goods aisles which would then be followed by a trip to the sugary drinkables. Up to bat was the cavity creating delicious goods, most of which would be chocolate probably based on the three. "First things first-o. All of them snacky snacks. Soft chocolate chip cookies, jello cups, choco candies, and marble cake? Hell yeah. All~ in the basket one by one." Wafers, biscottis, cocoa batons, gum, sweet red bean and brown sugar cakes, and milkita candies were also shoveled into the cart. There was a sizeable dent left in the candy section as Ian passed through.

Taking a semi-wildly-dangerously smooth turn to the next lane, Ian slid into the freezer section with the intention of grabbing a lot of microwavable foods just to piss Lana off. "Unhealthy? Maybe. Delicious? Absolutely." That being said, a good armful of microwave foods was added to the cart, including an oven baked Hawaiian style pizza. Take that Vi. Yet another chunk of depleted stocks in the freezer aisle, restock on Aisle 14 please.

' _Making my way down rows, pushing fast, aisles past and I'm chips bound. Banananana babababa badadadada doo doo doo.'_ Snickering to himself, he headed to the chip section when an open row caught his eye. The long sought after drink island. The place where all of those glorious sugary liquids would reside. And then, he saw them. The sweet honeyed brown coloring of his favorite brand of milk tea. Ian almost shed a tear in joy as he reached for a can, "Ah, only 100 yen per can. How cheap! Not that it really matters, but I'll take some nonetheless." And then after gently adding the single can to the baby seat of the cart, proceeded to grab the rest of the stock and add it to the cart as well. Now there was the matter of Lana and Vi's drinks. "Vi likes Calpis right? Eugh. Who knows which flavor, I'll just grab them all. And some apple green tea for Lana." And there goes another row of items into the cart. Paying no attention to how the cart is fitting all of these items, Ian added some fruit juice, mainly apple, orange, grape (yuck), and lemonade and some iced coffee bottles.

Now chips. Or chisps in Lana's case. There were just as many kinds as there were in a vending machine when you were younger and couldn't choose between the meager offering of chips and yet it seemed like an endless list of choices. Since there were so many, Ian decided to just ask the others their preferential chip. Leaning into the main aisle, he cupped one of his hands around his mouth and spoke loudly, not yelling, "Do you guys want any chips?"

Vi unexpectedly glided past the aisle, skating on her cart and yelling back at full volume, "I'm always a slut for doritos!" all of a sudden grateful for the language barrier.

Furrowing his brows, Ian yelled back across the aisle, "Screw your dorito meme, I'm going to fill my ass with ruffles!" And then more quietly under his breath, "I did not in any way mean literally, any gods or higher powers do not take that literally and fill me with ruffles that won't come out nicely. I meant the cart."

Ian quickly pushed the cart through the aisle and grabbed Vi's doritos, his own ruffles, and a bag of lays for Lana, all sour cream and onion because they are all one flavor people except Vi who was a heathen for liking the artificial cheese flavor. Some Asian seaweed crackers, seaweed snappers, shrimp and squid crackers, as well as a big family sized bag of barbeque lays and a tube of pizza pringles. Significantly less damage to the chips aisle than any other aisle that Ian had hit up. "To the cashier!"

Vi made her way to the back of the store pushing her cart quietly after her previous escapade. "Meat. Ahh so good." She drooled a little at the thought of barbeque. Lana would probably make her eat vegetables, but Vi didn't mind eating vegetables as long as they weren't raw. "Yum yum. Brisket with a side of cabbage stir-fry."

She carefully selected two packages of sliced beef brisket and one of pork belly for grilling. A package of chicken breasts and a tilapia fillet also went into the cart. Then she headed to the counter and asked for a half pound of shrimp from the man behind the counter. As an afterthought, she also grabbed a box of sashimi.

After the meat was the dairy section. She grabbed a carton of 2% milk for Ian, a carton of almond milk for her lactose intolerant self, and a carton of whole milk for Lana. Vi wondered if there were eggs in the fridge at home, but since she didn't look in the fridge, she wasn't sure. She decided against getting them for now. Recalling seeing an ice cream machine on the counter, Vi contemplated getting heavy cream to make a batch, but figured it wouldn't be good since the weather seemed to be getting colder.

As Vi walked past the canned goods aisle, she recalled the pantry in the kitchen. "There should still be enough non perishables there since we didn't eat anything in there. No need for canned soups and such right now. Same with cereals and instant noodles, huh."

Vi prepared to leave the aisle when she saw teas and coffees. "Oh sweet heaven." She grabbed a box each of green, black, barley, white, and oolong teas, stacking them in the cart. Spotting one of her favorite brands of pu'er leaves on the shelf, she quickly grabbed three and placed them in the child seat of the cart. Taking two more, she put them into the cart with the rest of the teas. Reaching the herbal teas, she grabbed a box of jasmine, chamomile, hibiscus, masala, and earl grey, adding them to the total.

"Alright, I think that's every type of tea and enough to last us months of tea time. Now time for coffee." Vi vaguely wondered if her middle school self had the mild caffeine addiction she developed studying for college exams. "Well, there's no time like the present to develop a lifelong addiction!" Selecting a french vanilla flavor that she remembered Lana drinking and a hazelnut flavor that she quite enjoyed, she continued on with her shopping trip. "It's too bad Ian never liked coffee very much. I suppose it's just too mature for him," she snickered behind her hand, glad he wasn't in earshot.

She figured she was done with her section and headed for the check out.

As the trio paid for their goods, they all earned some strange looks from the other customers who had never seen them before. Although it could have also been because they were middle schoolers with terrifying amounts of food in their carts, especially Ian whose overflowing cart seemed to be defying physics by not toppling over.

They left the store loaded with an entire day's worth of bought goods. Vi managed to "borrow" a cart from the supermarket so they wouldn't have to lug them all the way back home, although Lana made her promise to take it back as soon as possible. They attracted a lot of attention, being children pushing a cart with an assortment of grocery bags and clothing store bags.

At last they reached home and were all excited to add their purchases to the house. Vi reached the front door first and opened the door, while Lana and Ian unpacked their items from the cart. They entered the house together when they were spooked by a strange shadow in the darkness of their living room.

" **!"**

"Wah!" Lana screeched in complete astonishment of the sudden appearance of the figure. Grabbing the closest item she could reach, Lana dropped her items on the floor and took hold of the taser her dear big brother gifted her not too long ago that had been sitting inside her bag. Lana silently thanked her brother for gifting her a pink hello kitty taser. Placing a thumb against the switch, Lana's taser flickered sparks of electricity dangerously on the adorable yet vicious item.

Ian immediately placed his bags on the ground as gently as possible and took a battle stance, grabbing hold of the tall lamp plugged into the wall outlet beside the door. * _Warning, please do not attempt this at home since you'll be electrocuted.*_

Lamenting her lack of a better weapon, Vi swiftly adjusted her keys in her palm, prepared to strike at a moment's notice and slapped her other hand against the wall, hitting the light switch and lighting up the room, revealing the figure sitting on the living room table sipping at an espresso.

"Who the fuck are you?" Ian and Vi yelled almost simultaneously before the figure was illuminated.

The figure lifted his head and tipped his hat so the trio could see his face. "Those were nice reflexes, but clearly not the reactions of civilians. Who I am isn't important. What I want to know is who you three are. Your conversation was very unusual as well as your actions just now. So that brings me back to my point, who are you and why are you here?"

Upon sighting the talking baby in a suit, the trio froze.

Lana mumbled toward Ian, "I-isn't that…?"

"Reborn?" Ian whispered back, taking a few steps back but tightened his grip on the held lamp.

Terror enveloped Lana's eyes as she lowered the taser a bit, "What?!"

Vi was frozen in shock, but suddenly swung her arm, hitting Lana in the chest. "Dude! Do you know what this means?! I can't believe it! Holy shit! Oh my god!" Vi hissed, knocking Lana after every sentence.

"Could…ow…you…ow…stop?!" Unfortunately for Lana, Vi didn't relent her aim, "Ouch! Gah! P-pain…so much pain. AGH!"

Ian just stared at the shortest person in the room. "Oh my god holy shit. I thought it was familiar but this?"

Reborn smirked, "Ah, so you have heard of me."

"Shit, he heard us!" Vi clapped the hand that wasn't still tightly gripping the keys over her mouth.

"Wow he has really fucking good hearing, like what the hell." Ian ran his hand through his hair in shock.

"Paaaain." Lana whined, still hissing in pain from Vi's panicking hits and holding the taser tighter than usual.

"Since you have heard of me, that just makes it easier. Now," Reborn pointed his gun towards the trio, "Tell me who you three are and your connection with the mafia." He paused, looking at Lana and making eye contact. "Lana Vega."

Lana flinched when hearing her full name. Unsure of whether to raise the taser, she glanced up to stare at the baby hitman directing his gaze to her, "How does he know my name?"

Vi dropped her jaw. "What devil's witchcraft is this? I knew he was good, but not this good."

The tiny figure atop the table smirked, "I have my ways. Now tell me."

Ian scrambled to come up with an explanation. "Uh. We're not really allowed to talk about it. We're…under oath…?"

"Omerta huh?" Reborn figured from Ian's fumbled words, "Well since you clearly know the mafia, but you haven't changed back into your older selves, it can't be the TYL bazooka. That leaves either some new way that de-aging happens, or you're somehow involved with Checkerface."

The three looked at each other in confusion and worry, unsure if this somehow broke the rules that had been given to them, which would mean that they lost even before they started 'playing'.

Vi spoke up, thinking up a vague answer. "Well, I think I speak for all of us when I say that the bazooka is definitely not the only event that can change a person's age. But besides the bazooka, there's not many possibilities it could be. Since everyone here is an example of the one and the same," she finished, giving a pointed look at Reborn.

Ian, catching onto Vi's drift, added, "So now we know that you know and you know that we know."

Lana started to wonder what's up with this inception-like theme going on. Shaking her thoughts off Lana attempted to explain their situation without using any words that'd violate their rules, "You see, what we're trying to say is—"

"No, I understand…Checkerface it is then. Well, he must have some sort of plan, otherwise he wouldn't have sent you three here. Since you three are here, might as well help out. Gokudera's fight is tomorrow, so I'll be expecting you there in the case that something happens."

Finishing his coffee, Reborn placed the cup down and strolled through the front door nonchalantly as they simply stared in confusion as to what just happened.

"…We should go place the groceries into the fridge." Lana spoke, breaking the silence.

"Unload the bags!" Ian yelled as he grabbed five bags in each arm and heaved them over to the kitchen.

Vi stared blankly. "He left like three bags for us, and I think he took a clothing bag."

Ian's voice reverberated loudly from the kitchen, "If you want them, you're welcome to come and grab some!"

"I will not eat a shirt under any circumstances!" Vi yelled back, grabbing the three remaining bags and walking towards the voice.

"That's not what Ian meant, Vi!" Lana carefully closed the door, locking it behind her, "Vi would've said Reborn didn't lock the door…and loudly yelled that he was being rude."

"Hey! Reborn didn't close the door when he left, did he? How rude!" came a voice from the kitchen.

"There she goes." Lana sighed upon hearing Vi's voice.

Ian's voice once again floated into the living room, "Haven't you people ever heard of closing the goddamn door, no~?"

Heading over to the kitchen, Lana checked the clock set on the microwave noticing that it was dinner time, "Vi! Did you see a black bow clip in one of the bags? I kinda need it so that I can start making the stir-fry."

Ian wandered into the kitchen, "I haven't seen your bow at all. Are you sure it's not in one of your bags?" He was wearing a shit eating grin, with the black bow clip placed nicely in his hair.

"Nevermind!" Lana gave a blank look to Ian after yelling to Vi, "I think I already found it."

Ian snorted and handed the clip over to Lana. "I guess you did."

"Thank you." Lana felt obliged to thank him in spite of his actions.

Vi walked into the kitchen holding a butcher knife. "I heard someone say stir-fry."

Pulling her bangs, Lana clipped them in place with the bow clip, "Do you want to chop the vegetables?"

"Yes." A glint in her eye, she headed to the sink to rinse off her knife.

"Just don't hit your hand, and don't aim at us either." Lana turned over to Ian after warning Vi, "Could you hand me the wok?"

"Sure." Out of nowhere, Ian had already pulled out the said item.

Taking out a cutting board and setting her knife on it, Vi headed to their fridge and inspected the inside. "Fancy," she whistled, impressed. "So what do you need me to chop, Head Chef Lana?"

"Mushrooms, cabbage, broccoli, and zucchini." Lana replied while gathering the ingredients for the sauce base, "Oyster sauce, lemon juice, garlic, salt, and pepper. Hey, Vi take the garlic too!"

Using this as a chance to test out his wind powers, Ian took a few deep breaths to calm himself enough to light his wind flame. Then, gently wrapping one item at a time in a ball of wind, he struggled to lift it in a way that it just hovered. However, a lack of solid control unfortunately caused each item to spin in varying speeds and directions. Ian was able to manage up to a inch above a surface before it became too dangerous to control and unfortunately dropped a bottle of strawberry wine he had managed to obtain with a shout.

Turning to the source of the sound, Lana berated Ian, "Don't play with food Ian."

Her eyes widened upon the fragmented label of the alcohol stating 'Strawberry Wine', Lana thus voiced a serious tone to Ian, "We're not legal for Pete's sake Ian!"

"Shhhhhh Lana it's okay! It's not that bad really. They didn't even card me!" Ian looked sadly at the lost bottle and went to grab the broom and mop.

"How in the world did they not check for your ID card?!" Lana huffed as folded her arms across.

Returning to the scene of the crime with said mop and broom, Ian began cleaning up his broken mess. "The swagger walk obviously. You know? The 'what up I got a big wiener' walk of badassery, well that plus the credit card that Checkerface gave us just screams 'I'm rich!' So they didn't card me."

Sending a face palm to herself, Lana breathed a stressful sigh, "I can't believe this happened."

Ian pouted as he collected the broken glass fragments in a bag, "I can't believe it either! It was a delicious one too! I mean, I got more but still…" With a sigh, he left the pantry to go practice some more with non-damageable goods, probably lightweight too just for control's sake.

Taking each item out as Lana listed them off, Vi miscalculated the amount of food and grabbed too much for them to finish that night for dinner.

Lana didn't notice any of this as she was busy scolding Ian.

Vi paid no attention to them in the background as she prepared to play with her new shiny knife. After the vegetables were rinsed, she stuck her tongue out estimating how thinly they should be chopped. She had switched her butcher knife to a more suitable blade for vegetables. "Hmm, the knife seems a bit bigger than usual. Maybe just cause my hands are smaller, I guess." She started to chop the vegetables, getting into a rhythm. Chopping and putting it in a bowl. Repetitively. She didn't notice the sheer amount of food she had gone through until it was all gone.

Somewhat sheepishly, Vi yelled out, "Uhh, hey Lana! How much did we need?"

"One cabbage, six sliced mushrooms, one zucchini cut in fourths, and five broccolis chopped into small chunks." Lana yelled back to the girl assisting her with the vegetables as she busied herself on heating the wok.

"We're going to eat stir-fry for days." Vi deadpanned upon viewing how much she had chopped up.

Lana turned around at Vi's words and was going to question her until she saw the amount of vegetables sitting on multiple plates beside the cutting board, "I can't believe you."

Meanwhile the duo was cooking, Ian was sitting on the living room floor with pieces of paper in his hands. He took some time to quickly fold them into pieces of origami, and then set them around himself. "Focus your resolve, huh?" Ian stared off into space as he tried once again to find and hold onto his so-called-resolve from training. "Okaaaaay. Last time, I thought of…hmmm. It's essentially like a dying will bullet, except you need to hold onto that thought." Inhale. Ian let his eyes close as he could feel the heat rising through him, "So I guess mine would be to my own personal happiness."

Ian opened his eyes as his ring on his right middle finger lit with silver flames. Exhale. He focused on the paper crane directly in front of him and raised his right hand, "Take it slowly, one at a time." He imagined the wind creating a platform, enough force to hold it up but not enough to rip through. Once visualized, he could create a platform from scratch, entirely made out of air essentially, hovering relatively stable a foot off the ground. Gently picking up the crane, he held it over the top of the platform and gingerly set it down, careful to keep his concentration on both his resolve and his visualized platform.

Taking slow, even breaths to match the pulse of the wind, Ian slowly dropped his hands down into his lap, keeping a careful eye on his test object. Once it was stable enough, he focused on making additional platforms to place his other origami pieces on. Now with a total of seven different sized and shaped platforms, all relatively stable in holding the pieces aloft, stability was achieved.

"Now for the true test." Standing up, Ian created a platform big enough for him to sit on. "Wow ok this feels weird. Like I'm perpetually falling but at the same time, not?"

Now that he knew that he could keep them stable on a platform, it was time to try moving the platform and keeping the pieces sitting in the same place on top of the platform, starting with the crane. However, in moving the platform, the crane wobbled and tipped over, thoroughly wrecking Ian's concentration, and dispelling the platform as a gush of wind.

"Goddamnit." Ian groaned as he threw himself onto the floor in frustration. "But progress. Stability is good. Mobility can be worked on a little later. For now, I smell food." Climbing back to his feet, Ian made his way back to the kitchen, taking care to avoid his origami creations. .

Still in the kitchen, Lana put the finishing touches on the stir-fry.

Sitting on the ground next to the fridge, Vi felt displeased with herself for getting too much food and asked Lana, "Do you need anything else?" hoping for a chance at redemption.

Lana tried to think of something Vi wouldn't be able to mess up, "How about you set up plates for the karaage and sashimi in the fridge?"

Vi got up and raised a fist in the air, ready to prove herself. "I humbly accept this mission, Captain Lana!"

Shaking her head, Lana muttered, "How did I get from head chef to captain?" Deciding the dish was done, she turned the stove off. "The stir-fry is ready!" Lana announced while placing the stir-fry on a serving platter.

After taking out the karaage and sashimi, Vi took out a couple of plates and utensils for the trio. She also removed the small packet of soy sauce from the sushi box and put it into a separate sauce dish. She left the wasabi and ginger in the box, grabbing a small bit of each for herself.

Ian walked into the kitchen. "Ayyy it smells nice in here! Is it eating time?"

Grabbing the plates and utensils, Lana spoke to Ian, "Yeah, grab what you want."

They split the karaage and sashimi evenly among them and grab a large portion of the stir-fry in an attempt to make as much of a dent as possible so they could finish it faster.

Ian filled his plate with the stir-fry, karaage, and sashimi. As for the sashimi, Ian made a face at the ginger and wasabi in the box next to the soy sauce. "Gross. Why do you even use those? Soy sauce is all you need for fish."

Grabbing her own food, Vi shrugged. "It's pretty good after you get used to it. Maybe you just have a baby mouth with baby tastes." She poured some soy sauce into a separate small plate with a bit of wasabi, mixed it up, then dipped a slice of sashimi into the sauce. "Mmmm, it burns so good."

"Sashimi on its own tastes just as good." Lana dipped some sashimi into the sauce premade by Vi to try some, "The wasabi and ginger are good to try once in awhile."

"Eugh. Anyways why is there so much stir-fry?" Ian gave a questioning nod to the still very overflowing wok.

"I am very insatiable and I love food." Vi answered, looking innocent.

Looking in the cupboards for cups, Lana retorted sending a scowl to Vi, "She hecked up."

Ian chuckled, "Haha, we're going to eat this same thing for days." He turned his head suddenly, hearing a soft shuffling of steps in the hallway. Seeing Ian turn his head, Lana and Vi both turned to see what he was looking at.

Tsunomichi slowly wandered into the kitchen, as if lured out by the smell of food.

Vi snickered, "What are you an animal?" and went to the fridge in search of a drink. "Oooh, so much calpis! You want a drink?"

"I want you to stop tormenting the man." Lana rolled her eyes, despite having some anger welled up for Tsunomichi herself. "Grab me a water bottle and get Ian a milk tea."

"We don't have enough food. See? Only got three portions. Too bad." Ian popped open the can that Vi passed him and took a swig. "Ahh delicious~"

Tsunomichi's expression saddened at the thought of no food for him.

"Yes, if your portions are for some bear," Lana deadpanned remembering the sight of the amount of vegetables Vi cut, "We made so much food already, so it shouldn't hurt to share some with Tsunomichi."

Vi sighed and relented, "I suppose some would say that starving an animal is inhumane." She took a sip from her strawberry calpis.

Lana grabbed her plate and water and told the girl, "Vi, go to the dining room."

"Nah, I'll go to the living room. Maybe watch some tv," Vi left the kitchen, balancing her plate of food, the soy sauce plate, and her calpis.

"Put on food network if they have it!" Ian shouted after her, slowly following with his own plate and drink.

"We might need subtitles though!" she yelled back from the living room.

Before leaving the kitchen, Lana washed the plates in the sink placing them into the dishwasher. However as Lana was going to leave, she sent a blank look to Tsunomichi. In truth, Lana still felt irked about the first abrupt transportation along with the room incident although Lana gestured to the food, offering their leftovers to the sad caretaker. Finally, Lana left the kitchen to see what the two were doing in the living room.

When they walked into the living room, they spotted a phone they did not notice before on a side table had a flashing light signifying a voice mail. The principal had called to confirm their enrollment to Namimori Middle starting tomorrow, since the uniforms should have arrived by tonight. They should arrive early to make preparations for their classes and familiarize themselves with the school.

"School starts at eight in the morning so I guess we have to leave around seven?" Lana took note of the times mentioned from the principal's call.

"If school starts at 8 and we leave by 7 does that mean I need to be awake and playing up the bass at 6?" Ian asked, already putting an alarm on his phone for 6 AM.

Vi looked up from where she was inhaling her food. "So like. Are we going to talk about the elephant in the room? Or I suppose in this case, the hitman in the room."

Ian looked up from his phone and rested his head on his fist, "Wow you just gotta bring that up during this, the most peaceful of mealtimes? Yeah sure fine let's talk about how motherfucking Reborn was in our fucking house. Or about how we're in the goddamn manga. OR about how we're going to meet fictional characters that we hella crushed on? And how we got fineass magic powers?"

"Calm down Ian," Lana reminded him, "Now go drink your milk tea."

With the hand holding the milk tea can, Ian pointed his index finger at Lana and opened his mouth like he was going to speak, but paused and took a sip of his tea instead. "Now that I've drunk, returning back to the situa—"

"Hey, Lana," Vi interrupted. "How are you taking this all? You haven't seem freaked out very much."

"Reborn said my name." Lana spoke in a calm manner taking a sip of water while sending the both of them a blank face, "Of course I'm freaking out."

"Ah yes, I can tell from your tone and facial expression that you are absolutely traumatized." Vi drawled sarcastically. "But seriously this is completely batshit wild."

"You could say that this is, indeed, the freshest horseshit." Ian snickered to himself. "But ignoring all that, what do you guys remember from KHR?" With a glance at the two of them, he returned to shoveling food into his mouth.

Vi put a hand on her chin thoughtfully. "Okay, Reborn said that Gokudera's fight was tomorrow. The only thing that I can think that matches that is the ring battles with the Varia right?" Snapping her fingers in realization, she grabbed another mouthful of stir-fry, shoving it in her mouth.

Lana capped her water bottle to add on, "So does that mean we're in the Varia arc?"

"Oh no," Vi suddenly cried out. "That means my bae is in prison!"

Ian rolled his eyes in exasperation, "But your other bae is gonna arrive. All meek and shy and absolutely no battle prowess."

"Actually, you guys…" Lana frowned a bit, unsure of how to feel about what she was going to mention. "I don't think I remember much of what happened in the Varia arc. I mean it's been so long since we've read and watched the major storyline of Katekyo Hitman Reborn."

"Well like the Vongola wins at the end, so that's not really much of a problem. I remember my gf wins her battle against an arcobaleno with the help of my bf." Vi recalled, finishing her stir-fry. "And I still remember the order the battles were in. Sun, lightning, storm, rain, mist, cloud, and finally sky."

Ian shrugged, taking another drink from his tea, "Mostly what I remember had to do with Yama's match. And some of Gokudera's since that was a fucking amazing match!" Grinning, he set down his can before continuing, "I even took some of Bel's tricks to use for myself. Honestly, the wire technique you wouldn't think it would work properly but it does! It's actually pretty genius of a move. And absolutely dickish."

"I see." Lana nodded as she listened to Ian's memories of the arc, "All I recall was how they first met all of the members of the Varia and Tsuna finding out about his dad being an external advisor to the Vongola Family. The rest of the arc is where I draw a blank."

"Well, I suppose that's good enough for now. We shouldn't interfere too much since they are capable of handling this without us." Vi pointed out, remembering Checkerface's rules. "So we should watch from the background and not change too much plot."

"Let's watch from the roof!" Ian jumped out of his seat, managing to not spill any of his food in the process.

"Why the roof?" Lana questioned Ian's suggestion, uncertain of going to the rooftop in the middle of the night.

Ian looked as smug as he felt, "Because it would look cool. And because it would be nice and windy outside."

"You and your wind." Lana sighed, "As long as we don't get hit by a stray attack, otherwise we have to be watching elsewhere."

Shrugging as he finished his last few bites of food, Ian set his plate on the table, "I'm pretty sure as long as we stay on the other side of the school we should be fine from the turbine blasts. The only thing I'm worried about is the Varia's ability to sense others and their 'murderous' intent or whatever it was."

"Easy, we just have to not want to murder anyone. Or malicious intent. Which may be harder than it sounds actually." Vi tapped her fingers against the couch, swirling her drink around in her other hand. "Hm, we also have to stay away from Levi's weird squad since they get beat up by Hibari after the battle. Wouldn't want to run into that guy on a dark night."

"I doubt any of us wants to run into Hibari in the first place." Lana shuddered as it dawned on her that THE Hibari Kyoya from KHR is now considered real, "I still question as to why most of the fandom loves him the most, not to say I wasn't one of them before. Although now that we're here, I'm more terrified than glad to see him."

"The danger is the attractive part." Vi explained. "It's like how people like bad boys who don't 'play by the rules'." Fingers up doing air quotes, she made a face at a thought. "Which is exactly what Hibari is, if you think about it."

"Hibari is a walking danger zone, I still don't understand why he is cloud attributed when he's perfectly suited to be storm as well." Ian returned to his seat on the couch with an 'oomph' and leaned onto his knees, focusing on lifting his now empty tea can in a ball of wind once again.

"I guess Gokudera is more explosive than Hibari from Iemitsu's understanding." Lana internally laughed at the dry thought.

Ian glared at Lana. "That was absolutely horrible." And with a smirk, sent his can flying towards Lana in a wobbly arc.

Catching the can into her hands, Lana shrugged her shoulders, "Hey, I'm not the one who chose the guardians. Also that was rude, both throwing it and expressing the hidden pun in that. Telling me to 'can it.' Hmph."

Clapping her hands and ignoring Ian's snickering, Vi gathered their attention. "So in summary, the plan is to watch the battle from the roof and stay safe." she concluded. "Besides that, we go to school like normal middle schoolers, don't stick out too much, and gather information."

"Yeah." Lana agreed with Vi's statement.

"Righty-o champaroony. Good pep talk team. Break the huddle. It's time for sleepy time junctures to the dream freeway to snooze city. Because I am pooped." Ian stretched his arms above his head as he slowly pushed off the couch.

"You guys go ahead, I'm gonna go wash the dishes." Lana got up from her seat holding both Ian's can and her water bottle on top of her plate.

"You sure? We should probably help since you cooked after all." Vi argued.

Ian looked surprised at Lana's offer and reached out to grab his plate and can back. "I meant after dishes dude. Gimme gimme."

"Nah, it's fine." Lana reassured them, taking Ian's respective items with her in the direction of the kitchen, "Besides I need to pack the leftovers for our lunch tomorrow."

"Seriously, you don't have to do all that." Vi grabbed her plates and drink and followed Lana into the kitchen. "What's the point of having three people if one does all the work?"

"I guess if you really don't mind…I'm feeling really tired all of a sudden so I'm really going to go to sleep early then." Ian yawned and rubbed at his eyes, feeling his body become lethargic and heavy. "Goodnight~." Ian turned and climbed up the stairs two a time to his bedroom where he changed out of his clothes, into a loose grey tank top and blue sweats, and collapsed into bed. He placed his phone on the nightstand and flipped the switch next to his bed that lit up the ceiling lights, changing the room from its regular bright white light into a darker blue light that mimicked the view of the night sky below the ocean waters. The soft shades of blue dancing along his walls was the last thing Ian saw before he fell into a deep sleep.

Lana took Vi's plates and pushed her out of the kitchen, "Just go. It's all fine, so go on ahead and get your beauty sleep."

"Beauty sleep is for the weak. I am a natural beauty. This is the work of angel tears and heaven's clouds." Vi insisted as she was pushed out. "I don't need sleep! I'm all mighty! I can last forever!"

"Last week, you messaged me with that one tweet about 24 hour sleep cycle with the caption 'dis me'." Lana reminded the girl of what took happened before they were transported.

Vi yelled back from the stairs. "I am a multifaceted enigma!"

Shaking her head, Lana was going to head to the sink until she remembered about another cup sitting on the living room table. Placing the dishes beside the sink, Lana headed back into the living room to grab the said item. Once she took hold of the cup, Lana muttered to herself as she stared at it, "Reborn's cup."

Lana pondered as to how the hitman managed to find out her full name, since neither Vi nor Ian had referred to her by it, only her first name. Trying to shrug the thought off since it was giving her a headache, Lana decided to resume her dish washing duty. Once she took out the dish dryer from the cabinet below the sink. Lana commenced washing all of the dishes closest to her first. When she had finished most of them, Lana turned off the water and went over to see the dishes on the table. Wondering if Tsunomichi ate some and hopefully not all of the leftovers. However, much to Lana's surprise, she found the plates of food already gone on the table, replaced with only three lunch boxes atop of the dining room table.

Taking a closer inspection of the lunch boxes, Lana noticed that each one had a particular design referring to them by their primary flames. A white lunch box of stars scattering around, a black lunch box filled with different phases of the moon, and finally a grey lunch box using various leaves and flowers caught in swirls to signify wind flames. Lana felt bad for doubting on Tsunomichi after seeing this, he even managed to get them lunch boxes which all three of them forgot to get at the supermarket. Heck, he even washed and put away the dishes she was supposed to do before going to sleep!

Lana made a mental note to thank Tsunomichi for packing the lunch and took all three of the lunch boxes to place into the fridge to preserve the food. A yawn sounded from her mouth, feeling her need for sleep, Lana went straight up the stairs for bed.

Opening the door to her room, Lana took out a matching pair of pastel blue pajamas bearing the sleeping star twins known as Kiki and Lala. Lana mumbled, "I forget that I had these pjs."

Dragging herself over to the bathroom while holding her pjs in hand, Lana's eyes squinted from the brightness of the bathroom lights. She spotted two sinks, a toilet, and a bath/shower combo with a shower door. Standing in front of the two sinks was none other than Vi in her pjs, wiping her wet hair with a towel, "I took a quick shower."

"Wow." Lana admitted, "That's a pretty fast shower."

"Didja want to use the bathroom?" Vi asked, already unplugging the hair dryer from the wall socket.

"Yeah." Lana headed into the bath and shower combo and closed the door behind her.

As Lana was taking her shower, Vi took the hair dryer into her room. Once she finished blow-drying her hair, she went back into the bathroom to brush her teeth.

She stared incredulously at the clear dinosaur patterned cup on the side of the sink. "They took my toothbrush."

Lana stepped out of the shower with a towel wrapped on her hair while wearing the pajamas she chose and holding onto the folded clothes she wore today, "Calm yourself, Vi. Did you double check your suitcase or room to make sure it's still there?"

Vi walked back to her room holding the bright green toothbrush, still somewhat in shock. "My toothbrush. Oh my god." Mumbling to herself as she looked through her carry on bag. She took out a case and mentally prepared herself before opening it. "Oh wow okay."

She walked back to the bathroom holding a toothbrush in each hand. "This is fucking surreal."

Lana goes back to her room to place her laundry into the laundry basket she found in her closet, going back over to her suitcase, Lana grabbed her pink travel toothbrush, a clear plastic cup, and toothpaste. Walking back into the bathroom, Lana filled up her cup with water and started brushing her teeth. After gargling all of the minty foam using the water, Lana spat the contents into the sink. Cleaning the cup with the sink water, she placed the toothbrush and toothpaste into the cup.

Brushing her teeth quickly yet thoroughly, Vi went through her ritual of mouthwash and floss. "Dental hygiene is very important," turning to Lana. "Also my dentist has scarred me for life."

"I can see that." Lana continued to dry her hair using the towel first and then went to use the blow dryer in her room.

"Alright I'm done with my stuff. Night!" Vi exited the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

"Night!" Lana responded back to Vi as she finished blow drying her hair, unplugging the item. Returning it to the dresser, Lana switched off the lights and tucked herself into bed.

And thus their first night in their new house in their new world ended.

Ian opened his eyes to the sound of waves crashing. The sky was partially cloudy with a light breeze and the sun was warm on his face. "Where am I? This isn't my room for sure." Looking in front of him, there was nothing but crystal clear ocean and sand. Trying to get his bearings, he glanced around until a glimmer caught his eye. Turning around so he could see what it was, he was greeted with nine doors, six of which were unfocused, bound in chains inside a silver crystal. The first two doors labeled in his own handwriting, Daily Life and Kokuyo, were unlocked and unbound. The third door, labeled as Varia, was only cracked open, still bound by chains. Stepping forward to look through the door, Ian stopped as the chains rattled and unlocked itself, allowing the door to open all the way.

"What even is this?" Ian took a few cautious steps forward, standing in the bright light that was shining upon the floor, filling the air with images. Quickly turning back around to look, Ian was stunned as he saw pages upon pages from the manga. The storm battle followed by those of the rain, mist, cloud, and the all-out-war for the sky.

Ian took a few steps into the water, staring at these recalled lost memories in confusion. "This…I remember this happening, I read it! But why did I forget so much?" As he got to where the group met up with Lancia following the end of the sky match, there was a loud cracking sound. The crystal surrounding the next door shattered, revealing a chained door marked as Future that opened as much as it was allowed. Through the opening, more images were cast out, once again filling the room with his sealed memories. Looking back and forth between the cracked door and the room, Ian allowed himself to immerse back into the show, refreshing his memory of the sequence of events leading up to the raid of Melone Base. And then the memory stream stopped.

Ian returned his gaze back to the sealed doors, only growing angrier as he stared at the four remaining crystallized doors. "Wait what the fuck?! Are you telling me that I have more of these memories, the story, forgotten? Or were they sealed away? How did I get them back? I need to—"

The sound of his alarm playing the soft melody of Dearly Beloved caused him to open his eyes, once again in his room. With the morning light filtering through the raining curtains, the room was somehow cast into a warm and bubble bath-like look. Ian sat up and ran a hand through his messy hair, still a little tired. "Goddamn, what a fucking dreamtrip. I should mention it to them during breakfast. I'm sure I was just going insane, but maybe I wasn't the only one who had that dream."

Getting out of bed, he padded over to the bathroom he apparently shared with the game room. It was a pretty clean bathroom, with two white tiled walls and a marbled flooring with a soft fluffy white rug. The shower and bath unit was on the same side as the toilet, while the double sink unit was on the other side. At this point, Ian really wasn't questioning why all of his things were in the bathroom already. Instead he just pulled open the drawer where he hoped he would find his speakers and found said speakers in the drawer. "Amazing."

Using the portable speakers to blast his music, Ian moved in time with the beat while taking care of his morning ritual. He brushed his teeth with minty fresh toothpaste rather quickly, quicker than the recommended '2 minutes sing the happy bday song to yourself while you brush your teeth' because that was bullshit . He simply used his hands to transport water to his mouth to rinse it out, 'like a heathen' as Vi would say. "Morning time means shower time!" However, upon turning towards the shower he was greeted with 18 pairs of eyes.

A scream rang out through the house.

Vi was startled awake by the sharp chirping of her alarm. She sat up feeling absolutely dead to the world. "Wow tiny me was not a morning person." She looked to the side, spotting her alarm clock on the ground where she swatted it. "Well thank goodness I'm awake." The room was dimly lit since it wasn't facing the rising sun.

She put her glasses on and made her way to the bathroom, still groggy and yawning widely without covering her mouth. When she entered the bathroom, she saw Lana's door still closed. "I guess she's not awake yet. Gotta be quiet…"

Spotting her reflection in the mirror, she put a hand on her hair in shock. "This is exactly why I never got bangs again." Her hair was sticking up in all directions, defying gravity. Looking for a flat iron in the cabinet underneath the sinks, she found bottles of hair products of all types. "How much stuff does he think a girl needs? Like the only thing I would ever use is shampoo, conditioner, and maybe a detangler spray." She spotted the flat iron behind the hair dryer from yesterday.

Acting quickly so Lana wouldn't see her anything less than perfect, she turned it on, waited until it was warm enough, and swiftly pulled her bangs straight. "Ah, wonderful. Maybe I should have gotten hair clips yesterday, but I can pull off bangs." Hearing noises coming from Lana's room, she pulled the plug, wrapping up the flat iron, and hid the evidence.

Vi closed the cabinet door and picked up her toothbrush just in time for Lana to walk through the door.

Lana groaned as she turned off the alarm clock, feeling slightly groggy. It had been awhile since she woke up this early to get ready for school. Getting off of her bed, Lana fixed her bed sheets straightening out the wrinkles made. Once she finished, Lana went to grab the comb sitting on her dresser to comb the small bundle of mess known as her hair. After combing her hair, Lana headed straight into the bathroom. She tried to stop herself from rubbing her eyes while opening the door to the bathroom, inside she found Vi already brushing her teeth.

"Good morning, Vi." Lana mumbled taking her cup to get her toothbrush.

"Morning," Vi managed to mumble out, toothbrush and foam in her mouth.

The two got themselves ready in silence, brushing their teeth and washing their faces, until…

A scream rang through the house.

Lana and Vi, after quickly glancing at each other, ran out of their bathroom to Ian's room.

Knocking on the door, Lana yelled through, "Ian? Are you okay?"

"They're here!" Ian yelled back, "They've just been sitting there, watching me this entire time!"

Vi yelled through the door, "Do you need me to knock the door down? Because I can probably do that!"

Lana gave Vi a stern look. "The door is unlocked, you know."

"I can still knock it down, just say the word," Vi was already cracking her knuckles in anticipation.

The door opened quickly and Ian appeared looking spooked, "No no it's ok. I just…He just. He brought my ducks over."

Lana, about to scold Vi who was about to break down the door, was taken aback at the strange sentence Ian just uttered. She blinked and could only manage to speak out a single word. "What."

Ian snarled, becoming increasingly vexed and opened the door to let them in. "My rubber duck bath collection, the SS Bath Bottoms! And he arranged them by size! Look!" He pointed to the bath rim like he was about to lay down a sick objection in the courtroom to break the witness's lies and expose the truth, the truth…about ducks.

"You see, the biggest with the grey scarf is Cryanophymium. Then its Tattoomaylei, who is the grey one with a tux. Myriad is the next one with the arrow patterns on his wings. 006 is the one with the purple crown and her wings spread out. D.Y.M.O. is the one that looks like it's metal but it's really not, he's just very finely painted. Jasmine is the one with the glasses that has the indent in her back, I sometimes use her to have candles floating in my bath. 009 is the one wearing a blue vest and is holding a ball. Historia is the graduation-looking one. Duck Duckaroo 2000 is the one in the yellow polka dotted inner tube that also has an indent for my candles. Sodium to the Nth Batduck is the one with large black rimmed glasses. 003 is the one that has the daisy sun hat, Omnium is the white one with the two swords on its back. Clark a Doodle Duck is the one with red polka dots. Makki is the pink one with a teal bowtie and Mattsun is the fluffy one with a teal bowtie. Rellia is the one with the giant red bow on her head. Zennikins is the one making a scowl as if it were insulted and that…That one is a new one. The checkered hat one. Ohmygod that fucking fuckboy I swear to god he added a new duck to the SS Bath Bottoms. That's its new name, I'm sorry duck. Your name is now Fuckboi. You're not going into the SSBB, but you can go with the Why U Mad Hatters collection and not the Tops Not Bottoms collection since you have a fedora."

Staring at the disorganized duck line, Ian sighed, bemoaning silently that he would have to rearrange them the next time he took a bath.

"Well, good luck on that." Lana checked the wall clock in Ian's room and went back to her room, "I still need to wash my face."

Vi, eyeing the row of ducks closely, wondered out loud, "I thought I once gave you a princess duck."

"The one with a crown right? Yeah you did. Lunark the Moon is in the Tops Not Bottoms collection. Why?" Ian turned around to look at Vi suspiciously.

"Just curious. Although, in my opinion, the princess seems more like a bottom." Snickering behind her hand, she left Ian's room.

Ian's response was just a look of disgust. Heading downstairs for breakfast, unchanged, he muttered to himself, "She could be a power bottom, you never know. Anyways, no shower for me I guess."

Back in Vi and Lana's bathroom, the two finished tidying up and got ready to go downstairs, still in their pjs.

The trio walked into the kitchen to find their student uniforms folded nicely on the table with a note on top with a checkered hat, presumably from the only checker maniac in the house, Tsunomichi.

Lana took the note and read the letter out loud.

 _Good Morning!_

 _I hope you three are ready to start going to school! Normally I would be there to take you to school as your legal guardian, however, Master Checkerface requested my help so I am currently away on business. Although, I am confident that you three are able to take good care of yourselves and are able to make it to school with no troubles._

 _Remember the rules given to you._

 _Your caretaker, Tsunomichi._

Listening in the back, Vi took her head out of the fridge, "Wonder what kind of business that could be." She found the curry and cream puff bread that Lana bought yesterday. "Aw Lana, are these for us? Hey, Ian! There's a cream puff for a cream puff!"

Ian looked out from the pantry. "Who're you calling a cream puff, cake pop? Hand it to me," sticking his arm out.

Lana stifled a yawn while refolding the letter, "I'm not dealing this without coffee." She turned to the coffee machine, taking out the box of french vanilla Vi had purchased yesterday.

After receiving the offered cream puff, Ian grabbed a chimichanga from the freezer and moved to the microwave to heat it up.

Vi was still rifling through the fridge and called out. "Hey do you want anything to drink besides coffee? Also, I still gotta toast my bread."

Lana headed over to set the toaster oven, "Could you get me an apple, 3 eggs, and half a glass of orange juice?"

Ian called out by the microwave, "Just gimme the whole thing of orange juice!"

Vi passed the curry bread to Lana who put it in the oven, got out an apple, 3 eggs, the orange juice jug, and the almond milk carton for herself, and closed the fridge.

Once Lana got the three eggs from Vi, she asked the two on how they want their eggs while taking out a frying pan and spatula, "Scrambled or over easy?"

Ian removed his finished breakfast delight from the warming machine, gently rested a hand on Lana's shoulder in passing, and whispered, "I'm always scrambled."

"What about you Vi?" Lana asked while drizzling a small amount of olive oil onto the pan.

"Also scrambled." Vi sipped her almond milk, waiting for her curry bread to finish toasting.

Lana muttered to herself as she salted the first scrambled egg, "Guess I'm the only one who prefers over easy."

While pouring the other two their glasses of orange juice, Vi remembered a thing. "Hey I saw three boxes in the fridge. What were those?"

"Those are our lunchboxes, I think Tsunomichi packed the leftovers for us after I offered him some dinner." Lana replied, starting on the next scrambled egg.

"Really?" Ian went to the fridge and took the boxes out while putting the orange juice back. "Hey Lana did you look inside them yet?"

"No, I was too drowsy yesterday." Lana stopped for a moment by the time she finished her over easy egg, after realizing her small mistake, "I should've checked, drat."

There was a snort from Ian. "Oh my god you have to take a look, this is amazing."

Vi went over to look and began laughing so hard, she choked on her milk. "This is absolutely surreal."

Lana, making sure the stove was off, headed over to look. "Did I make the right choice in giving him food?"

"I fucking guess so, this is completely hilarious." Vi put her drink down, starting to cry a little.

Ian picked up his full glass of OJ, giggling to himself as he took a picture. "I absolutely fucking think you did, this is the best thing that I've seen this week."

Lana gaped at what she saw, "Wow…this is adorable."

It was the cutest fucking lunch boxes any of them had seen. Vegetables cut into little flowers, those little hot dogs cut into octopi, the rice was shaped into cute animals with faces made out of seaweed. The stir-fry from yesterday was neatly put around everything, creating a nice border. Overall, it was absolutely adorable.

After taking a gulp of his drink, Ian commented amusedly. "Wow he does care. Either that or he's scared as all hell of us."

"I don't even know any more." Vi shook her head. "It almost seems like a shame to eat these. If he made these every day, I might forgive him in a week."

Lana marvelled at their caretaker's success, "Tsunomichi has found the way to Vi's heart, through her stomach. I also kind of owe him an apology later…anyways! It's school time, c'mon we need to change into our uniforms!"

They each grabbed their own uniform from the table and spotted something. Underneath the uniforms was another note with an orange dying will bullet, that the trio could only guess was from their guest yesterday.

 _I'll be watching you three._

 _-Reborn_

"Well, that's not terrifying at all," Vi broke the silence with her sarcastic remark.

"Wow you are absolutely right that's not creepy at all. Nuh uh! Not at all! I, for one, welcome yet another person watching our every move." Ian placed a hand on his chest, looking sincere, but his words dripped with sarcasm.

"At least he somewhat knows our situation." Lana stated while taking custody of the letter.

"Our situation? Do you mean constant threat of death? Ah yes, I am so pleased that a hitman knows that we are in constant danger." Vi retorted. She sighed heavily. "Why don't we just get changed."

Ian laughed at that, "We are the danger that lurks in the streets."

The trio all headed back up the stairs to change into their respective school uniforms. When they all finished, they met downstairs in the living room.

Lana dressed in a white blouse covered by a dark blue sleeveless sweater vest, paired with a grey skirt and black leggings, last but not least a red bow tie on the collar of her blouse. On her hair was none other than the same bow clip she bought at the accessory store to hold back her bangs and in hand was an olive colored messenger bag meant to be used for her laptop that is now used for her messenger bag. Decorating on the zipper, Lana added a rabbit charm adorning a gold bell she used back in high school.

Vi wore the same as Lana except she chose to ditch the black leggings for a pair of black thigh highs. In her head, she complained about being absolutely stifled in the layers. She especially wanted to rip off the stupid red bow that had no business being there, but she settled for laying it flat and covering it with the purple scarf she bought the day before. She had dug out a medium black messenger bag from her closet and decided to use that as her bookbag. She decorated her bag with a bunch of pins she had collected over the years. There were five small cat face buttons, two rainbow pins, three dog faces, a volleyball, a snake, and a crab. She decided to keep with the same running sneakers she wore to the airport, since boots and the like were just impractical for school.

Ian looked very uncomfortable in his uniform. "Eugh. Longsleeves are gross" He kept fiddling with the longsleeves of the sweater vest and white button up. He temporarily debated about tucking them into his grey pants, but decided against it. Once he finished adjusting his tie to a decent constriction, "Damn neck traps," he grabbed his black messenger bag, attached his nalgene bottle, and picked up his skateboard and headphones from the floor.

In the living room after seeing each other, Vi smirked. "I think we may stick out more than planned."

"Why do you say that?" Lana asked Vi.

"We don't dress like middle schoolers." came the reply.

Ian sighed, resting his arms behind his head. "We are middles schoolers, in middle school uniforms, going to middle school. It doesn't get any more middle school than that. I look fine though. Maybe you should look in the mirror yourself, you look abnormal."

Vi sighed. "It's just something about the way we stand and hold ourselves."

"Our stance?" Lana glanced at what she was wearing for a few minutes before sending Vi a questioning look.

"Righty-o sorry lemme just fix that real quick." Ian immediately dropped into a slouch and put up an air of defiance. "Jyuudaime! I will be the boss' right hand man!" Straightening back up he gave Vi a smirk. "Better?"

"Why you gotta sass me like that? I was saying that we seem more mature than the average middle schooler and you just have to prove me wrong!" She held her hand over her eyes in irritation.

"Most middle schoolers seem more mature than the average middle schooler! I don't know what you want from me!" He stuck up his middle finger at her, and pulled another rude gesture from his pocket.

"Alright enough arguing and more walking you two." Lana reminded the two.

"We're like still in the house, where do you want me to walk? Into the wall?" Vi's voice began raising. "And statistically speaking, if most middle schoolers were more mature than the average, than it wouldn't the damn average!"

"To the windows! To the walls!" Ian laughed as he rolled out the door on his skateboard doing an ollie over the threshold.

"To be or not to be, time to say goodbye to the house and head straight to school." Lana pointed at the wall clock waiting for Vi by the door, "Ian, why in the world did you skateboard out of the house?! Now there's gonna be dirt on the floor!"

Grabbing her bag, Vi muttered under her breath. "I'm starting to think the saying that boys mature slower is real."

"Don't say that." Lana remarked toward Vi's statement, "Come on let's go."

Cursing at Ian in her head, she followed them out the house and locked the door behind her. "He started it this time, calling me abnormal. I look cute as fuck which is more than what he can say. Hmph."

"Yes, yes." Lana followed after Vi to walk beside her, "Vi is the cutest in Namimori."

Ian stood at the front gate, balancing on his skateboard. "Hurry up ya slowpokes."

Vi rolled her eyes. "Why'd you bring your skateboard anyways? Are you gonna just hold it all day at school?"

"What if the administrators or teachers confiscate it?" Lana brought up.

All that got them was a shrug in response. "Ehh. It'll be okay. If sports kids can keep their shit somewhere so can I with my skateboard."

Vi grumbled into her scarf. "Shoulda brought a coffee, it's cold out. I hate this. How long 'til we get to school?"

"I think…" Lana grabbed her phone from the pocket of her messenger bag, "We have exactly…oh no…10 minutes left to get there."

Ian pushed off the ground, starting to roll down the street slowly. "We've got time. We live pretty close to school anyways."

"Ian, slow the fuck down." Vi complained when Ian started to get ahead of the others.

Ian skidded to a stop and turned back to face them in shock. "I just barely started moving! And you're telling me to slow down, says the one who wouldn't slow down yesterday when we were shopping!"

"Ian!" Lana called out to the skaterboy in frustration, "We can't catch up to a skateboard on foot."

With a sigh, Ian hopped off his skateboard and picked it up, waiting for them. "Alrighties then."

Increasing her speed into a sprint, Lana headed straight for the direction of the school, "That's what you two get!"

"Betrayal!" Vi cried out. "From the most unexpected source!"

"Oh wow! Lana, taking it from behind!" Ian grinned. "But not for long!"

"No fair! You both got a head start!" Vi yelled, running after them.

Taking off in a mad dash, Ian rolled his skateboard out in front of him and jumped on, riding the momentum from both the roll and his sprint to pull in front of Lana. "First to school wins!" The distance between their house and the school was in a diagonal line, cut in between the residential district that was filled with big gaps and smaller alleyways. Unfortunately, Ian on his skateboard wouldn't be able to fit through the narrow alleys safely, meaning he had to go around the entire residential homes onto the sidewalk to get to school.

Dodging and weaving through the early morning risers, the tired workers, the vibrant exercise joggers, and late school goers, he made it out of the residential area and to the sidewalk. For the most part, it was an uphill climb, all the way up to the school. "Why are schools always at the top of the fucking hill. Why even put a school anywhere near the hill? Do they want their students to be tired in class or something?" Ian groaned, reclaimed his wheels, and hit the ground running.

"This sucks all the ass, I swear, it's enough to be a vacuum." There were other students who were also walking to school that stopped to look at Ian, who was running in a dead sprint up the hill without looking too winded. But ignoring their stares, Ian continued to run up the path, the school gates in sight. However, Vi was coming up the opposite path, also almost at the gates. He locked eyes with her and leaned forward to reduce wind resistance. Summoning all of his energy to propel his legs further, faster, fiercer.

As Vi ran past Lana, she spoke under her breath. "Thank fuck I wore my good sneakers today." She was also grateful that her legs were longer than the other girl's. "See you at school, Lana!" waving behind her.

Once she was a good distance ahead of the girl, she took out her phone and opened up the picture of the map of the town. She began mapping out shortcuts, using alleys with less people and other low traffic areas.

Vi quickly turned a corner into an alley and spotted a tiny crying cat. "Oh no! I must pet it!" Remembering her lack of time, she just fucking grabbed the cat and started to run away. Hugging the kitten to her chest, she cooed. "Oh you're so fluffy and white and I love you. I wonder if I can keep you secret until later."

She continued running through alleys and side streets, narrowly missing trash cans and loose garbage. As she skidded out of an alley, fully intact and dusting herself off, she spotted some students wearing the same uniform as her.

"It's a hill?! Seriously?!" She bemoaned the uphill climb, as she adjusted her bag and the kitten in her arm. Cursing her plight, she started sprinting up the hill, hoping that Ian wasn't already there. She gained some weird looks for having a cat with her, but she ignored them and concentrated on not tripping and falling on her face. School gates in sight, she spotted Ian coming up the other side, almost exactly at the same time.

Making eye contact with the boy, she mustered her remaining strength and moved her legs faster by sheer willpower. The two reached the front and rushed through the gates.

"First!"

"I win!"

Left behind, Lana grumbled at Ian's and Vi's speed, "I forgot they're faster than me."

As Lana jogged down the sidewalk, she noticed a sudden increase of people out today besides the students. There were people exercising or walking their dogs, students from other schools going down a different direction, and workers rushing to get to work. Lana barely dodged the incoming lady walking her dog heading down her way.

"Why are there so many people out today?!" Lana bit her lip as she continued to evade incoming obstacles she came by. In the midst of her constant evasions, Lana spotted a cute dog wandering outside its house.

"Oh, what a cute dog—" Without even realizing it, Lana's face had slammed into the pole. She cringed as she pinched the bridge of her nose, "Ouch."

Taking a few steps back, Lana leaned down to pet the adorable dog's head out of satisfaction. Once she got her satisfactory amount of petting, Lana continued running onwards to see a familiar building. Nami-Middle in all its seemingly normal glory, with students entering from the hill. Wait…a hill?! The uphill climb?!

"Oh my…no!" Lana screeched as she attempted increase her speed more, "Uphill climbing…time to internally sing the Love Hime song!"

Humming the tune to herself, Lana's sprint slowly inched after each person she surpassed while smiling to herself. Each person that was passed wondered why in the world was she smiling with a small bruise in the middle of her forehead. Although by the time Lana spotted the gates of the school, she saw Vi and Ian already leaning against the gates waiting for her.

"Well there goes my chances of winning." Confirming that she lost to the both of them, Lana slowed down her pace back to walking.

As she approached the gates, she heard the bickering that she had long gotten used to.

"What do you mean you won? I obviously stepped past the gates first!"

"Are you blind? Clearly, my head went through before yours!"

Lana reached the gates and sighed. "Congratulations, you both tied. Does either of you have water?"

Ian unclipped his nalgene from his bag and handed it over to Lana. "So what happened? Didja get lost?"

"I ran into a pole after spotting a dog on the sidewalk." Lana finished after taking a waterfall of water.

Stifling her giggles after seeing the bruise on Lana's forehead, Vi put her arms around both Lana and Ian's shoulders. "Nice job anyways. Although let's not do this every morning to avoid the whole 'who won' thing, okay?" Remembering her indignation before Lana arrived, a spark of determination welled up inside her.

Unbeknownst to her, her ring flickered up for a few seconds and her hands glowed dimly. The glow went into Ian and Lana respectively and the two felt a sharp tingle.

"Oi." Ian rubbed at his neck, "Why the hell did you zap me?"

"Huh?" Lana blinked a few times before placing the palm of her hand on her forehead, "My bruise doesn't hurt as much all of a sudden." She took a moment to collect herself and realized that she felt rather refreshed for someone who just ran up a hill.

Eyes wide, Vi whispered to the other two, "I think I saw my thing light up," holding her hand up.

"So does this mean it was your you know what?" Lana whispered back to Vi.

Ian face palmed. "We really need to come up with a code. Can't just say things or you-know-whats all the time." He glanced around the schoolyard, not seeing many students that early. The likelihood that anyone had heard them was nil.

"Oh man, that's so cool, I wonder if I can do that to myself." Putting a hand on her chest, she scrunched up her eyebrows in concentration. Soon the trio saw her ring dimly light up and hand glow a little. "Dang that packs a punch. Kinda like I just chugged an energy drink."

Ian looked at Vi worriedly. "While the idea sounds really gross, that was indeed neat-o."

"Uhh, Vi…I know this is a little late to say but why are you holding a cat?" Lana pointed out at the small animal still in Vi's grasp.

"I found it." Shifty eyed, Vi held the kitten a little tighter. The kitten mewed in protest.

"Where exactly?" Lana's eyes narrowed at the girl holding the kitten close.

Feining ignorance, Vi looked at her nonexistent watch on her wrist. "Oh, would you look at the time! We should head to the admin office!" She started to walk ahead towards the building.

"Vi…" Lana shook her head in disappointment, "Why are you taking the cat?"

Ian straightened out his tie before sighing and following. "At least hide the cat before going into the building, Vi."

Vi turned around, grinning brightly. "Come on Lana, fix your shirt already. You look like you just ran a mile."

After they cleaned themselves up a little and Vi hid the cat in her bag, they headed to the administration office. They sat in the waiting room for a couple minutes before the secretary called them into the principal's office.

The principal was sitting in his chair facing the trio, three packets sitting on the desk in front of him. "Take a seat." He gestured to the chairs in front of the desk, that looked very similar in style to the waiting room chairs. Which meant that they would be moderately uncomfortable.

After taking a seat, the trio got a good look at what was supposed to be the principal of Namimori Middle School. The principal was a professional looking stout old man, showing signs of age, but had a head full of hair that was obviously a bald comb over wig. It was a little hard not to stare too much at the wig, but they managed to sit through most of his spiel about the importance of learning and being proper young girls and boys in a professional school setting and blah blah blah.

Wanting to get his speech over with, Vi put on her teacher's pet face. Looking like an innocent angel, she smiled sweetly. "Of course, we want nothing more but to get the best possible learning experience out of this! We've heard so much about the brilliant teachings of this esteemed institution and were so pleased to be enrolled here."

Ian, leaning back in his seat, pretended to gag at Lana. He mouthed the words, "Kill me and end my suffering."

Lana frowned at Vi's actions and mouthed back to Ian, "I can't, we're inside the school."

The principal seemed to be very impressed with Vi's performance. "Well that's excellent! Oh, I seem to have rambled on a tad. Why don't you kids go get yourselves acquainted with our humble school." Waving a hand, he excused them from his office. "And don't be late for class, now!"

"Thank you sir!" Vi walked out first, making sure to bow slightly.

Following Vi's example, Ian bowed deeply to the principal, grabbed the packets off the table, and walked out the door.

Lana did the same as the others, closed the door behind her, and followed after the two.

Once they were out of earshot, far away from the principal's office, Vi turned to her companions. "That was disgusting. All teachers want to hear the same thing. 'I love learning' and fancy words like 'institution' or 'accredited' and bullshit. It's almost too easy." Making a face at how easily the principal was charmed.

"Terror." Lana mumbled, somewhat feeling grossed out from the principal's reaction.

"Horrifying." Ian had on a look of disgust. "Anyways let's go check out this 'prestigious mental institution' why don't we? Otherwise I'll go mental." Inside the packets was a map of the school grounds, with their classroom written on the bottom of the map. He handed Lana and Vi each a packet that they could call their own.

"Sure, unless I go mental before you." Lana added while taking the packet Ian offered to her.

"Ahh school. The foundations of education. I'm practically in my element." Opening her packet, Vi looked inside, spotting the map, a student handbook, and other miscellaneous papers. She made a mental note to read the handbook thoroughly for ways she could bend the rules.

"Hey, you guys…" Lana noticed something about the area they were at after opening the map. Pointing at a spot on the paper, "I think we're here."

"Hey you guys." Ian mimicked and pointed to the third floor of the building. "Isn't that the location for tonight's battle?"

"Do you want to go check it out or should we head to class?" Vi asked, eyes scanning the walls for a clock.

"I say we go straight to class." Lana personally didn't want to be late to class unless she was sick, "Transfer students shouldn't skip their first class."

Ian snickered, walking backwards towards the school. "How scandalous. Transfer students late on their first day? For shame. We could always just say that we were looking at the library like good students and lost track of time in the books."

"We are not skipping class." Lana wouldn't budge from her previous statement.

Vi sighed. "Fine. Wouldn't want my good student status to be tarnished, after all."

"It wouldn't really be skipping, we'd just be a tad late." Ian nudged Lana's shoulder, trying to see if she would give in.

"No, Ian. We're not skipping class, and that's final." Lana reinforced the same words, grabbing both of Ian's arms to in order drag him to class, "No one is avoiding education hours. Not under my watch."

Ian watched, amused, as Lana struggled to pull him along even though he was walking with her. "Yes, _mom_." Turning his head to look at Vi, he called out to her, "Vi! Quit waiting at the bus stop, the bus is already moving."

"This is amazing." Vi watched the spectacle in front of her. "It's absolutely hilarious."

"Quit joking around, and let's go." Lana tugged on Ian's arms.

By some miracle, the three had ended up assigned to the same classroom. They entered the classroom to find that class had already started.

Everyone turned to look at the new arrivals.

The teacher looked up from the chalkboard. "Ah, you must be the transfer students. I had expected you earlier. Where were you?"

Vi had her teacher's pet mask back on. "Oh, we were listening to the principal's lovely speech. He was very informative, but unfortunately, he lost track of time. But he sent us to class, telling us how great of a teacher you were and that he sends his regards." Grinning brightly at the teacher, she quickly charmed him.

Lana glanced over at Ian, mouthing the words, "She's at it again."

The teacher scratched his head, feeling a mixture of pride and embarrassment. "Well, I guess that's fine then. Anyways, why don't you introduce yourselves." He stepped aside and motioned for them to write their names on the chalkboard.

"Um, excuse me sir." Lana spoke up, "Unfortunately my name is in English, is it fine to write it as is?"

"Sir, I'm afraid that goes for us, as well. You see, we're not from here." Vi interjected.

"Same with me. Which would be better?" Ian followed, taking another step closer.

The teacher seemed lost and confused, having never had to deal with this many transfer students at once. "Er well, I suppose you could write your names in English and then read it out loud for your classmates."

"I have a Chinese name, is it better if I use that?" Vi wondered, curious.

Ian looked a little worried, looking at Vi before returning back to the teacher, "I have a name in both Korean and Chinese, is that okay?"

Flustered, the teacher continued. "If you want to use your other names, you can, but you don't have to."

All three take a piece of chalk, each of them writing their names up on the board. Once all three of them finished, they all turned to face the class.

"Lana Vega"

Since her name was in English, a few students got it but not all of them.

"Nice to meet you all, my name is Lana Vega." Lana gave a small bow before resuming her introduction, "Although I prefer to be called Lana more than my surname, and let's all strive for good year!"

Content with her introduction, which sounded so generic and foreign to her in her own mind, Lana stepped back to allow Vi to introduce herself next.

Her name got some strange looks from the students who didn't recognize the uncommon kanji.

﹁

張

維 Victoria Chang

娟

﹂

"Nice to meet you. My name is Victoria Chang, but my last name can be pronounced Chō in Japanese if you feel like calling me that. Otherwise, you may call me Victoria, or Vi." She bowed to them and continued speaking. "Let's get along this year."

She stepped next to Lana and allowed Ian to take the stage.

Taking a step forward, he bowed enough to be polite. "Pleased to meet you, my name is Tae Hoon Chiang, and even though our last names are similar, me and Vi are not that similar." Then without giving them his nickname, he turned to point at different parts of his name on the chalkboard, 「태 훈 江」, to indicate which character was for which name, which got him even more strange looks from the mix of languages. Turning back to face the class in spite of the weird looks, he grinned and shook his head to move his bangs away from his face, "Let's have a good year together."

The teacher stared blankly at the trio who managed to completely distract the class from his lecture. "Okay, there seem to be three empty seats in a row by the windows. Take your seats and we can start class."

Vi took the first spot, Lana the one after that, and Ian slid into the final desk. The teacher began his lecture anew after the three got themselves situated.

"Oh, since you may not have the books yet, go ahead and share with the student next to you."

Turning her head to the right, Lana had to blink twice to realize who's sitting next to her. Orange hair, check. Sparkly shoujo eyes, check. Warm smile to anyone that's friendly, check. Indeed this person was none other than—

"Nice to meet you, Lana-chan!" The girl sent a bedazzling smile toward Lana, internally making the poor girl cringe at how bright it is, "My name is Sasagawa Kyoko."

"Nice to meet you, too." Lana started to question as to how many people, especially Tsuna and Ryohei, can stand the sparkly aura of her's when she's basically being stabbed in the eyes with it. Moving her desk over to join Kyoko's, the said girl shifted the textbook over to share. Lana returned Kyoko a smile of thanks, but internally wept at her timing of horrible luck today.

Out of the corner of Lana's eyes, on the edge of textbook was a drawing of a smiley face. Returning her gaze back to Kyoko, who continued taking notes, Lana wasn't truly sure of whether to feel blessed by the school idol like many others or attempt to ignore the drawing which tried to get her to bond with one of the female protagonists of KHR?

Vi laughed internally. She had seen Kyoko the minute she walked in the room, but apparently, Lana hadn't since she sat right next to her. ' _Oh the poor luck of that girl,'_ Vi lamented. Time to see who she had been dealt.

Vi turned to see a relatively good looking boy looking back at her. Like he wouldn't win any beauty contests, but he wasn't by any means ugly. Anyways he was like a 6/10, she mentally rated. Not particularly interesting yet.

"Hi, nice to meet you!" She smiled and extended her hand.

The boy shook her hand firmly and responded. "Hello Chō-san, welcome to our class. My name is Sakamoto Hideki. I'm the class representative, so if you ever need something, you can ask me."

Internally, she was very pleased with herself, having chosen someone who knew what they were doing. He got up and moved his desk next to hers. Placing the textbook in the center between their desks, he continued, "Let's get along."

Already thinking of ways she could twist him around her finger, she smiled shyly, looking up from under her eyelashes. "Okay, Sakamoto-kun."

Ian snickered behind his hand at Lana's misfortune of sitting next to her to-be rival. ' _Vi was lucky to have sat next to a semi-cute guy, but I'm not really the glasses type. That's Vi.'_ was his train of thought as he turned to face his neighbor.

' _Wow I hit the motherfucking jackpot.'_ Was all Ian could think of as he looked at his desk buddy. It was like he was a main character from a best selling romance novel, a model on the cover of some fashion magazine, and every teen girl's fantasy husband, all combined into one fucking gorgeous middle school boy. Short brown wavy hair, warm green eyes, great smile, a well rounded, tanned and fit body, Ian completely wasn't paying attention to anything else going around him, including what he happened to be saying to him.

Ian only snapped out of his train of thought when a hand entered his field of vision. Realizing that his desk mate probably had introduced themselves while he wasn't paying attention, Ian quickly reached out and shook the offered hand. "Ahahah sorry I wasn't paying attention…Uh I couldn't quite catch your name…"

"That's quite okay Chiang-kun. My name is Hirase Aki. You can call me Aki if you'd like." Aki smiled at Ian and pushed the book over to him. "Here. I've already read ahead so I'll be fine."

"Let's share it anyways." Ian gave a smile in gratitude, scooting his desk over to share with Aki. ' _Ah. Wow okay he's super cute and all but it would be hella fucking illegal if I was my actual age and not this weird psychological physiological age return to 13. Stay faithful to Yama, Ian.'_

The teacher continued lecturing once they had the books in front of them. "Okay class, now who can tell me…"

First period seemed to last forever. The hour ended and the teacher left the classroom. Almost immediately, most of the students gathered around the trio's desks.

"So where are you guys from?" A small girl with wavy brown hair asked them. A couple other students nodded and leaned in, curious about the answer.

"America, but if you want a more specific area, it's California." Lana started her explanation, "My parents take me back to visit the Philippines once in awhile."

Ian nodded, "I was born in California too, but I go back to Korea and Taiwan every other summer."

"I was born in Taiwan," Vi responded. "But raised in Cali most of my life. I go back to visit every summer, so I really have a connection there."

A tall boy with black hair and glasses interrupted. "How do all of you know each other?"

"Ahh. We met in elementary school in Cali." Ian recalled, grinning at the memory. ' _We met in middle school there actually, but I can't tell them that now can I?_ '

"Why did you guys come here from California?" A tall blond girl asked.

"We were interested in Japanese culture." Lana managed to convince the students with a common answer.

At this question, Ian stalled. They still didn't understand as to why Checkerface picked them to come to this world, and they didn't really think of a reasonable excuse as to why and how they came to be in this world. Shrugging, he BS'ed his way through his answer. "I guess I just wanted to spend some time outside of the countries I was familiar with, kind of like a study abroad." He hoped his questionable answer matched his insecurity in his being here.

Vi was quickly becoming bored with these questions that could easily be answered by one person. "Yeah what they said."

"Would you like help getting around the school?" Kyoko asked the trio.

"That's alright." Lana declined the offer given by Kyoko, there was no way she needed to spend more time with Kyoko much longer than school hours.

Quickly glancing at Aki before focusing back on the group, Ian smiled and shook his head. "No it's okay. The principal included a map in our papers."

Vi nodded, no longer listening, put her bag on her lap and sneakily started petting the inside.

The class bell chimed and a different teacher walked in. "Alright everyone, let's sit down and get your books out. Well, I see we have new students. You can share with the person next to you."

Vi turned to Sakamoto again, "Well, Sakamoto-kun, I guess we'll be sharing again!" She batted her eyelashes and smirked internally as he pinked a little.

Without any need for speaking, Kyoko immediately shared her textbook with Lana who continued to cringe seeing more smileys on the edge of the next book. Smileys everywhere. Lana prayed that she would get by today without seeing another one after school.

Ian was surprised by the sound of a desk moving next to him. Aki had moved over this time, opening the book to where the class had left off yesterday and leaned in close to whisper, "Perhaps I should just stay here today then Chiang-kun?" He gave a wink and either didn't notice or didn't comment on Ian's reddening face.

Thus, the day passed, each period becoming increasingly similar to the last. The teacher would come in, surprised at the new students, tell them that it was okay to share books, and continue with class. After class, their classmates would come running up to them with more questions. "How fluent are you guys in your natural languages? Do you have a significant other? Do you like sports? Do you play sports? Which club will you join?" The trio were becoming increasingly tired of answering these questions and were becoming more and more grateful for the interruption the teacher's entrance made.

During lunch, they got several compliments on their adorable bentos and more questions of who made them. The three had trouble holding their laughter as they remembered seeing them in the morning and the fact that Tsunomichi had made the adorable lunches for them. Vi occasionally 'dropped' food into the bag in her lap.

By the end of the day, the trio was unusually exhausted by the relentless questioning. Classes ended and everyone packed up, saying their farewells and 'see you tomorrow's.

Aki stayed behind a little while longer so he could exchange phone numbers with Ian. "Just in case you need help getting adjusted here." He said with a wink and a wave as he left first.

The trio let this fun event drop, as they were incredibly tired from the day. Vi could have her fun making fun of Ian later, after a nap maybe.

"Kill me…" Lana exasperated unable to take the endless amount of smileys and sea of questions directed at them.

Vi yawned, covering her mouth. "I'm beat. Should we go home or stay here and wait for the thing?"

Ian groaned, completely and utterly exhausted. "Let's go home for a nap! The thing doesn't start till 11 at the earliest anyways!"

"Home it is!" Vi took out her bag and brought out her cat. "Aw it's sleeping. Too cute."

"Nap awaits!" Lana raised her arms to stretch, feeling the need for more rest. As they started walking, she sighed heavily, "Do you want to know what Kyoko drew on the edge of her textbooks every time she shared her book with me?"

Vi hummed, rubbing her face into the kitten's fur. "No what did she do? Little miss sunshine."

Ian snickered and leaned forward to look at Lana. "I don't know man, rainbows? But sucks for you dude. I can't believe you got stuck with her as your desk companion."

"She kept drawing smileys, and during each class period when she shifts her book to me, the smileys increase!" Lana claimed, "She's trying to befriend me in the most uncomfortable way."

"Sounds rough bro. I have it hard too you know. My dude next to me, he's a really good looking guy. 10 outta 10 would bang, if I didn't feel like it was wrong." Ian shuddered, humming softly. "Besides, since we're here, I've gotta be 100% focused on getting that blue feather to or from Yamamoto. I don't care either way."

Vi held out the kitty towards Lana. "Shhh, just pet the kitty. Animal therapy."

Lana didn't hesitate to pet the kitten held in Vi's arms. The kitten was quite fluffy and made it difficult to not pet the animal.

They arrived home, exhausted. Lana unlocked the door and they all filed into the living room.

Vi dropped onto the chaise part of the sectional and laid the cat on top of her. "Wake me up for dinner."

Locking the front door behind her, Lana grabbed a pillow by the end of the sofa to rest her head on, "Yeah."

Ian muttered something unintelligible into a pillow. Probably something along the lines of "Same, buddy chum pal friend-o. It's nap time."

By the time they woke up, it was already dark outside. Strangely, the trio did not remember having blankets on top of them before they slept.

"Uh Lana? Please tell me you woke up and put blankets on us." Vi pleaded, eyes wide.

"…I hate to say this Vi, but it wasn't me this time." Lana replied, a little bit surprised.

Ian popped his head out of the cocoon of blankets he was wrapped up in. "Well, if it wasn't you guys, and it wasn't me, then who's flyin the digeridarn plane?"

Vi stiffened up, realizing something was missing. "Where's the cat?" She flipped over the blankets and searched under the table. "Where's the cat?!"

"Um, Vi?" Lana tapped the girl's shoulder, "I think the lights in the kitchen are on."

"Nya?" Vi turned her head very quickly, hitting Lana in the face with her hair. "Nyaa!" she yelled as she ran to the kitchen.

"Blech!" Lana grimaced at getting hit by Vi's hair.

Untangling himself from the pile of pillows around him, Ian managed to stand up and stretch, "C'mon let's make sure it's not a burglar or some kind of weirdo freak. Also m' very hungry, it's gotta be dinner time."

Upon entering the kitchen corridor, the trio's eyes widened to see the cat Vi had taken with her eating cat food while being petted by their caretaker.

Hearing the sound of footsteps nearby, Tsunomichi turned his head over to them wearing a smile on his face, "Tonight's dinner is curry! Not too spicy, but a good blend of mild!"

Heading over to inspect her cat, Vi looked at Tsunomichi suspiciously. "Where did you get the cat food?"

"The pet store." Tsunomichi answered to the girl.

"So this means I can keep the cat." Vi responded.

"Yes, at first I was going to return the kitten to the shelter, but they grew on me right after I fed it." Tsunomichi spoke in delight.

Vi pumped a fist in the air in success. "Yus. Cat acquired." Grabbing the kitten, she held it over her head like Simba in victory. "Oh it's a girl."

Ian chose to ignore all of that and headed over to the kitchen to grab a plate full of curry for himself. "Thanks for the food. Curry. Excellently yummy and de-lish."

On the stovetop was a pot of curry and steam was coming out of the rice cooker.

Lana opened the pot of curry to inspect it while reaching for her own bowl. "Hey Tsunomichi, what did you put in here?"

Tsunomichi, counting on his fingers, listed off the ingredients, "There's potatoes, carrots, onions, some green onions, and a mix of chicken and beef."

Vi had grabbed a bowl while no one was paying attention. "Really? There's onions in this?" She had already stuck a spoonful into her mouth. "You can barely taste it. Nice." and gave Tsunomichi a thumbs up.

"You actually got Vi to eat onions," Impressed by Tsunomichi's cooking skills, Lana sent a smile to him before proceeding to scoop her own helping of curry and rice, "That's amazing, also thank you very much for making our lunch and dinner for today."

"Hey hey~ This is pretty good. Thanks for lunch also!" Then Ian shushed himself by taking another bite.

Vi paused before taking another bite. "Oh yeah, I guess thanks for lunch too?" She continued shoveling food into her mouth.

Tsunomichi shook his head and gave the three a kind smile. "Not a problem at all. It is all part of my duty as your caretaker after all. Now, once you are finished just leave your dishes on the counter, I will take care of both cleaning and packing your lunches for tomorrow." Clapping his hands once, he walked out of the kitchen leaving the trio alone.

They each took a seat in the chairs around the island and ate their curry.

"Oh yeah, that reminds me. The cat doesn't have a name yet." Vi spoke up between bites of food.

The cat stared at them with its big blue eyes. Raising a soft fluffy paw, she licked it and scratched at her ear, until her white fur was sticking up in a cowlick.

Vi cooed at it. "So cute."

"We could name her Snow." Lana suggested by the kitten's fur.

Ian grinned and reached out to pet the cat. "It's a girl right? Let's call her, Lily maybe. Or some other flower maybe. Or…" Pausing, he turned to look at Vi, "484a. The penal code for petty theft, because that's as close to the code for the theft of an animal for personal purposes that I could find."

Vi, placing a hand on her chest and feigning deep offense, took back the cat. "How rude. How could you just accuse me of such a thing."

"You guys…Stop arguing." Lana's feeble attempt at stopping the rising argument went unnoticed.

"YOU LITERALLY PICKED HER UP AND RAN AWAY!" Ian yelled, then crossed his arms over his chest in a huff because he could no longer pet the cat.

"She was just crying in the middle of an alley without a collar or anything." Vi pet the cat softly and stuck her tongue out. "And I can't believe you looked penal codes just to sass me."

He rolled his eyes, but still smiled at the thought of Vi picking up the cat during their race. "Oh, but of course I would. But whatever. What's your name for her then?

She looked away suddenly and mumbled, "When I didn't know she was a girl yet, I was calling her Blue Eyes White Dragon in my head."

"I cannot believe you were going to name a cat Blue Eyes White Dragon." was all Ian could say as he stared at her incredulously.

"It matches her!" Vi argued, indignantly. "Look at her!" She yelled, holding the cat up.

Lana sighed and raised her voice to cut over the two's squabbling. "Alright break it up! Now that we've figured out that we can't agree on a name for the cat, let's go over the plan for the matches."

Ian shrugged and slumped in his seat. "We go to school, observe, make sure things go the way they're supposed to. I'm pretty sure that if we meet them now they'll only get distracted."

Vi added onto Ian's statement. "Don't get caught, don't change anything major, don't reveal who we are. Pretty much."

"Anything else? I think that was most of the rules anyways." Lana hummed to herself, already feeling the excitement run through her at the thought of seeing Tsuna.

Tsunomichi came back into the kitchen abruptly. "It's almost 10. You best be heading out soon if you want to hide yourselves before they show up."

Shoveling the rest of the food into her mouth, Vi got up and grabbed the cat and bowl. She yelled something muffled to Tsunomichi who nodded like he understood. He took the bowl and the cat from her as she left the kitchen, hand to her head in a sort of salute.

"…Did you understand what she said?" Lana questioned Tsunomichi about Vi's garbled words.

Tsunomichi shook his head. "Either something about thanks for dinner and she's going upstairs to get her things or that we're under attack by aliens and she's going to be abducted."

"I'm pretty sure it's the first one." Lana deadpanned about the second option Tsunomichi stated, "Unless she actually said that instead."

"Nah you never know. She could have some recently developed E.T. bullshit sense and there are actually aliens. But I digress. Let's go get changed." Ian grinned, slowly rising from his seat and stretched.

Placing the plates on the counter, the two followed Vi upstairs to their respective rooms to change into clothes to conceal their presence during Gokudera's battle.

Lana unclipped her bow clip, placing it on the dresser to not lose it. Exchanging her uniform for a pair of dark blue jeans and a black long sleeved shirt, Lana debated whether she should take anything else with her besides her cellphone. Her eyes trailed over to the star necklace sitting on her dresser, unfortunately Lana didn't want to lose it either so she decided to leave it. Only taking her phone, house keys, and finally the rings she received from Checkerface hanging on the chain of her old necklace.

Vi changed out of her rumpled uniform into a pair of black skinny jeans and a dark gray shirt. Thinking it would be cold outside, she also grabbed a fluffy black coat and some gray gloves to cover her rings. She kept the purple scarf on since she was starting to like it. "Hm, I guess that's it? Don't want to stand out too much in the dark." Putting her cellphone in her coat pocket, she headed back downstairs. She decided to keep the running shoes too since they were quiet if she walked the right way.

Ian debated with himself about changing into night gear but decided, "Fuck it. Tee shirt and sweats should be okay." Ian changed into a light grey pair of sweats and an old dark purple archery club shirt and left his skateboard leaning against the wall before heading back down. Before shutting the door, his eyes caught on the pair of rings that were just sitting on his desk and decided to grab them as well.

In the living room, Tsunomichi was waiting for them on the couch, petting the still nameless cat. Standing up, he gave them several instructions. "Alright now, make sure you don't stay out too late! Don't catch a cold outside! Be careful you don't get hurt in the aftershocks! Don't pick a fight with any of them! Make sure you try to come back immediately after the match, unless Reborn wants something with you three! I'll be waiting with a nice hot cup of cocoa when you get back! Get back home safe!"

"Oh my god, you're like a mom." Vi didn't seem to know whether to look amused or horrified.

"We can't deny the fact that he's our caretaker anyway." Lana didn't mind it, Tsunomichi actually seemed more concerned for them despite being Checkerface's assistant to say the least.

"It's actually pretty cute of him." Ian smiled, appreciating this side of Tsunomichi more than the one he had first encountered.

Tsunomichi sniffed indignantly. "I can't help it, I worry about you sometimes. Now shoo, you're going to be late."

The three were shooed outside by Tsunomichi, who stood inside the door, making sure the cat didn't run outside. After they were out of earshot, Lana decided to bring up a question, "So…how are you guys feeling about this world? Minus the excitement."

Slowing in his steps, Ian sighed. "I can't help but wonder what about home, you know? What's going on with our family? There were people at the airport too, didn't they freak out?"

"I'm actually pretty curious about the science behind this, this is absolutely wild," Vi waved her hands in amazement. "Is this actually a parallel universe or a completely separate dimension? Why was it a manga in our world but it turns out to be reality here? How does Checkerface have the power to do this kind of shit?"

"Vi, you nerd," Ian butted in.

Vi continued speaking as if no one had interrupted her. "Also I was running off the theory that while we're here, time back home has paused. Like while we've been removed, that universe is lacking something that makes it function." She paused in her speech. "But that's not necessarily the case."

Ian cast a worried glance at the girls, before returning his gaze forward. "That's what I'm hoping. After all, the last my mom saw of me was me leaving for the airport, expecting to get a call when I touched down in Japan. I saw dad even further back than that because of his work. My sister, Esther, always loved traveling, and she'd probably flip if she knew that I had gone beyond where she could explore. Peter would be in a tizzy, he always panicked if I had shown any sign of sickness or got hurt at all. Hopefully, it's just a different space-time coordination, and time works on a different scale here than there."

"I hope you're right on that theory, because…" Lana paused for a moment to think about her family, "I kind of miss my mom's cooking, dad being a dad when it comes to my future choices, and last but not least actually wanting to see my brother, Will, get married to that pretty lady…called Fauna who makes funny star jokes at the planetarium they work at. Like c'mon, get married already and stop stalling brother!"

"Wow can't believe you're already talking about marriage. Are they even dating?" Vi asked.

"Probably not." Lana huffed while giving a scowl toward answering Vi's question.

Ian snorted, before coughing to regain his composure. "That's actually hilarious. Make one of those 'plan matchmaker' things, why don't you?"

"Do you think I haven't tried? The short version of what took place in the plan ended in an utter failure once he found out I'm the perpetrator who thought of the idea."

Vi sighed heavily. "To be honest, I don't know if I really miss anything back home? I'm mostly sure my ma isn't too worried since we were supposed to go on our trip, right? We're sort of used to not being in contact a lot. Cause like I spend so much time between Taipei and LA, we're not exactly together all the time, so she just doesn't worry too much. Plus this whole thing still feels like a dream, all very surreal."

He took a deep sigh, staring up at the sky. "The fam is probably worried. They always got worried about me when I stayed out too long without contact, even during high school. And this seems to be a long time unfortunately. Who knows how long we actually spent in that space, training? This seems like too unreal, like one of those lucid dreams."

"…Mm, if this really is a dream. Then this is the longest and strangest one we ever had, although I hope nothing bad happens as we continue from here on out." Lana proposed, unsure of what's to arrive.

"Thanks Lana, you just jinxed it." Vi turned her head and looked around. "You know what they say, knock on wood." She knocked her knuckles against Lana's head.

"Ouch! Stop, my head isn't made out of wood!" Lana slapped Vi's arm away while puffing her cheeks out in frustration.

Ian laughed and poked at Lana's cheeks. "Hahah! Now you look like a fish, just like your bf!" Smile fading, Ian turned to face the two girls. "But what are the actual chances that they would fall in love with us, much less even like us for more than our abilities?"

"Well, considering we're complete strangers as of now," Vi paused for dramatic effect, putting a hand on her chin in thought "Oh, maybe a couple years if we're lucky."

"True…" Ian continued moving forward up the hill. "This is gonna suck a whole bag of dicks, ain't it?"

Lana mumbled, "I guess so."

The conversation trailed off at their depressing topics and they continued to walk in silence, the occasional scuff of sneakers or odd sound from a house filling the background noise.

The trio arrived at school, the buildings looking eerie in the darkness. Hearing voices approaching the building, they immediately went to hide in the bushes. In peeking out between the branches, they could see the unmistakable trenchcoat-like uniform of the Varia flowing in the wind. The trio overheard them talking as they walked past.

An impatient child-like voice muttered out loud giving a sigh, the trio deemed the owner of the voice to be Mammon, "What's taking those brats so long to arrive?"

Another voice cut in. "Ushishishiii~ Maybe the bomb kid got scared and ran off like a chicken with its head cut off~ That means I'm the winner! Just as a prince should be."

A loud piercing voice that the three knew for a fact to belong to a certain long haired swordsman rang out through the school. "Vooooiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! Don't get too cocky yet Bel!" And continued yelling things for a few minutes after that the trio chose to tune out.

The giant with the lion's mane turned to face a small group of people that kneeled in front of him. "Lightning Strike Squad! Go patrol the grounds."

"Yes, squad leader Levi!" His minions responded without heed before disappearing into thin air to make rounds.

The Varia proceeded to enter the building, so full of themselves in anticipation of winning this round for their boss' demands.

After the Varia entered the building in which the battle was to take place, the trio ran into the adjacent building with a good view into the other's windows. They quickly made their way to the rooftop and situated themselves in an ideal location to spy.

Ian collapsed onto the roof floor, still a little tired from the day's adventures. "Aww man. The Vongola aren't even here yet how boring. Now what am I supposed to do?"

"Hope they don't take too long." Vi shivered into her coat, putting her gloves on.

Lana's expression grew to a grin as she quietly squealed, "We're finally get to see them in real life! Especially Tsuna, yes all the yes!"

Vi gasped. "Rude, Speak for yourself." She mourned the fact that she wouldn't get to see her bae for like three days.

Raising himself onto his elbows, Ian raised an eyebrow at Vi's statement. "Bro, what? It is your dude's own fault that he's locked away in baby jail."

"Calm down you two." Lana tried to pacify their incoming argument until a shrill cry of complaint and a fit of hearty laughter filled the area.

"What the fuck was that?" Vi whispered harshly, looking around them.

"Whoop de doo. It looks like the circus has come to town." Ian hummed, lying back on the floor, content to just lie there.

Lana muttered back, "It sounds like something is happening below us?"

The Vongola, except Gokudera, had arrived in their usual noisy fashion. The trio was too high up to make out clearly what they were saying, but it seemed like it was following the manga word for word.

"So begins the third battle of the Varia arc. Only however the fuck many to go." Vi drawled, trying to remember how long the manga was.

Ian remembered his dream from the night before and thought it was a good time to bring it up while nothing was still happening. "Hey uh guys. Last night I had this really crazy dream. I was uh…what seemed to be a beach? And there were locked doors inside crystals. And it showed me the rest of this arc, like the battles for storm, rain, mist, cloud, and sky and some of the Future arc as well. And I'm just like, how the hell did I forget that much? Was it the same for you guys?"

An expression of comical confusion swept across Vi's face. "I don't remember what you're talking about. I didn't have that dream and I don't really remember much about the arcs after this. Isn't it normal though since it's been awhile since we read it?"

"Ian, are you sure that's true? I didn't even have that sort of dream at all, plus the arcs are kind of fuzzy." Lana seemed puzzled at Ian's statement.

Ian was becoming increasingly confused and worried about what happened, but tried once again to explain what happened to them. "I'm absolutely sure! I mean…Yeah I guess it's been a very long time since I've last read it but still! There's no reason for everything else to just be all a big hunk of nothingness! I just—"

"Hey! They're going into the building! It's about to start!" Vi stage-whispered, shooshing the other two.

The trio watched from the roof as the stage was set for the battle for the Storm Vongola ring.

* * *

also posting schedule is that we are gonna try to keep up with the khr birthdays and post accordingly

(but who fukin knows how that'll work out. i doubt it.)

so that means, the next update is potentially in 2 days. we are not even halfway done with ch4 sooo...

hahahah it would be great if it rained soon. ;3

have a day or two.


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